We stopped in Swan Valley to see if the resident moose was out and about. We almost drive right through when I noticed a very dark moose chillin' in the water near the road, so we stopped for our first pictures of the day. She certainly noticed us, too, 'cause she stopped to look straight at us before turning, peeing in our general direction, and walking away into the brush.
Ty had just flown in that morning with only very little sleep the night before, so the poor guy was beat, as evidenced by his napping. It became such a common sight, I had to take a picture.
We stopped to take a couple of scenery shots along the way. I even tried out my polarizing filter, as shown in the picture of brooding clouds.
I even discovered the hazards of having too many filters/hoods on your lens while shooting a random shot out the car window.
And I found a tree I really liked. Yup. One tree.
Next, we found people gathered around this little pond, and upon stopping and asking, someone informed us there was a moose and her "calf" around the other side.
So Ty and I hopped out and hoofed it through the brush to the far side of the pond, cautiously approaching as quietly and ninja-like as possible. We found mama moose feeding across the far side. Ty thought she was sexy, so he started posing and posturing to attract her attention. [Photo ommitted at subject's request.] She must have noticed, 'cause she did some posing of her own. "Hey sugar, you like what you see?"
As we approached the edge of the water, we found "baby" around the corner to the right, mother moose a little to our left and across the water. Baby looked right at us, and as we learned baby was no small beast, we kept an eye on the "little" dear. Despite its size and the realization that it could pound us into people paste, it had a certain cuteness.
Mother moose did some more posing for me.
As I was engrossed in taking these photos, I heard a voice from an older gentleman across the pond yelling to us with a certain urgency in his voice, "You guys had better get out of there!" Baby was on the move. Baby was even bigger standing up, and he was headed casually but confidently towards us. We politely bowed out and got our hides away from there. The park ranger had come around and congratulated us on our good judgment not to stay and play with the precious little beast.
So we hopped back in the car and headed for the Lodge to take some pics of the valley.
We ate dinner on the balcony there: Wild Game Burgers for Maw and Ty, and Portabella Mushroom veggie sandwich for me. A large wedding party included photographers using cameras that gave me serious lens envy. The park ranger stopped at our table to ask if we'd seen more moose. And I was picked on, tag-teamed by mother and friend. OK, I did some teasing, too. And the sun set as we sat and visited. Naturally, we snapped a couple more shots before heading home. There's something warmly pacifying about watching the sun set over that expansive valley.
1 comment:
You did not seriously put eyeshadow and lipstick on that moose. You're such a dweeb!
Post a Comment