Remember the mama and baby moose that visited the house a few months ago? These two:

We’ve seen them passing through more than a few times since then, though always when it’s too dark to really get a photo, or when they’re already too far away. This morning, I was playing with the dogs outside when I realized Macgee hadn’t moved for several minutes, and was staring intently across the road. When I looked more closely, I saw the moose pair making their way through the neighbor’s driveway towards our house. I grabbed the dogs and put them inside and managed to get my camera in time to take a few photos.

Mama:

Teen:

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We had another moose by the house. We saw this one through the window…actually, the cat saw it through the window. We always know when a moose is outside, because Cousteau starts to freak out. He paces between the windows looking extremely concerned. I think he deserves a little credit.

Anyway, we watched the moose approach through the window. When it was about 50 feet away from the house, it stopped to munch on the many green plants growing around here. I, of course, grabbed my camera and slowly moved in for some pictures. This one had no babies, so I was slightly less worried than last time.

“But Ryan,” you might be saying, “couldn’t you put fear aside and get even closer to this gigantic and dangerous beast, so we may see it more clearly?”

To you who say such things, I reply “No” and “Shut up.” However, I would put on a bigger lens, and stay at the same safe distance. Behold the moose in all her beautiful, moosie glory!

Eventually she tired of eating our plants, around the same time I got tired of taking pictures of her. It worked out well for both of us, and she moved on to eat someone else’s yard.

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The other evening, I was out in the yard with the dogs, when I heard a crackling from the other side of the house. This being Alaska, and Ashlee having an irrational hatred of mammals significantly larger than her, I immediately grabber her collar and pulled in Macgee’s leash.

This is what peeked around the corner of the house:

I shuffled the dogs inside, and grabbed my camera. Mama moose was on the other side of the house, so I tiptoed around and managed to get a few shots before they got tired of me leaning around the corner and pointing the camera at them.

I also took a short little video with my D90. It’s a little awkward to hand-hold, so please excuse the shakiness. I was not very interested in fumbling around with a tripod, for obvious reasons.

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One of the places we saw on our move to Alaska is Muncho Lake. The lake is gigantic, and sparsely populated. We passed a campground, the only one we had seen in about 20 miles. We kept going, though, wondering if there was any sort of town or just a grocery store where we could get some food. We rounded a blind curve, and found The Northern Rockies Lodge. We dined in their German restaurant, and setup our tent in their campground. It was late, but I managed to get a couple of pictures out of it.

On our way out of British Columbia, we encountered several herds of wood bison along the road.

We also stopped by Liard Hot Springs. I had been to some hot springs in California, but it was extremely crowded and apparently only “mildly warm” springs, so I didn’t get in. Liard is much smaller, and much much hotter. You can actually see the source of the hot water, as it boils up from underground. It’s quite a hike back to the spring, so I didn’t take my camera. It would be really cool to visit in the dead of winter.

In the parking lot, I did spy a squirrel doing cute things in a tree.

I kept snapping photos of it, and it kept letting me.

And then it decided I had taken enough pictures, and climbed further up the tree. But not before giving me some decidedly American sign language.

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