You Don't See That Every Day

And I haven't ever in the 17 years I've been living here.

Except finally today.

I saw my first MOOSE!!!!!

I can't really count the fleeting glimpse of midnight moose butt several years ago as my first sighting because it was so quick and blurry. But this morning definitely counts.

I was on my way to a rather far away meeting with a client when the client's mother waved in the direction of the left side and said "isn't that a fabulous fake moose over there?"

I turned to take a look, realized she was very wrong, and said loudly "that's no fake, that's the real deal!"

We both turned and stared as long as safely possible in a moving vehicle that one of us was driving. Of course, neither of us had a camera.

The she-moose (she didn't have a rack on her head, so we figured she was a girl) was standing in a grassy vacant lot between two businesses back from the side of the very highwayish street we were driving on. She had her head up sniffing the wind, watching traffic, and soaking up the morning sun (it was around 8am). When we picked up my supervisor, my supervisor said the moose come out of the forest/boggy areas they live in early in the morning and at dusk to escape the hoards of mosquitos and lick the salt off the roads. Well, our moose seemed very relaxed and happy to maybe have several mosquitos around her rather than a cloud. As for licking the road or side of the road, she wasn't making any moves to do that when we passed her, but who knows about afterwards. She was gorgeous tho. I know moose are not the most attractive animals, but she was the color of melted chocolate, shiny in the sun, and just had a confident calm charisma about her. And she was HUGE, bigger than a pick-up truck.

So I've officially been welcomed to Maine. It's taken 17 years, but I've finally seen my first Maine moose.