My Moose

After I dropped Abby off at the bus stop I went for a run.  It was around 6:30 in the morning, still a bit dark and some morning fog was hanging along the roadside.  I could see what appeared to be two people walking towards me on the side of the road about a 1/2 mile away.  They started to cross the road and head down into the ditch and that is when I finally realized it wasn’t people but it was a moose.  Thinking quickly I performed my best moose call(imagine a sick cow mooing with a little grunt at the end!).  The moose stopped in his tracks and turned to look towards me.  I stood motionless on the side of the road and decided another call was appropriate(a little more nose snorting this time).  The moose started walking alongside the road right towards me like my long, lost friend.  When he got within 20 feet from me a car approached from behind him and it made him stop abruptly.  Now this nice looking moose with a beautiful rack was caught between a vehicle and something that sounded like a dying animal but looked like a stupid human.  I, being the stupid human, was still on the road with rock walls on both sides of the road that I would be unable to scale if I needed to make a quick departure.  Vivid memories of Shawn Perich’s narrow escape from a moose flashed through my mind as I pondered what or where my next step would be.  Most people would back up, but I didn’t even think about it.  I took a few steps forward(since that was the direction I was heading), and the moose held his ground.  I took a few more steps toward him and decided to just ask him to move out of my way, which he did, right down into the swamp.  As he trotted through the water I decided to try to see if I could get him to stop with another of my famous moose calls.  Sure enough, he stopped and looked at me with a quizzical look in his eyes before heading toward the woods.  Some would say this wasn’t really the work of a talented moose caller  but the luck of a local to be in the right place at the right time.  I will say be it luck or talent it was an experience I won’t soon forget.