... last night i was wicked ill, some sort of intestinal thing i figured was possibly brought about by my not cooking long enough the crab cakes i had for supper ... i awoke early feeling okay, so i hopped atop my trusty bmw and headed for a little wanderabout in the highlands ... after stopping in bingham for some excellent french toast and about a gallon of coffee, i turned off route 201 and began randomly following paved back roads and heavy-duty dirt lanes leading in the direction of moosehead lake ... after a couple of hours i was throughly lost, so i found a high ridge to fix north and then began wandering back to the south ... at one point i found this young moose browsing in a bog alongside the road ...
... while i was watching him a battered suburu pulled up next to me ... gerry said to me, "i'm ninety years old and i've been coming to my camp down the road since i was a little boy ... in all that time this is only the second moose i've seen in this bog" ...
... i asked him why he thought that was, since, for sure, in this part of maine moose are relatively common ... "that bog's got thirty feet of jelly under the surface" ... after he left i got a bit greedy photographically and moved from behind cover to see if i could get a closer vantage ...
... the moose noticed me and decided he'd had enough ... as he charged down towards the treeline he disappeared from sight, as if a giant trap door had suddenly opened up beneath him ... i was stunned, one moment moose, the next just a quiet bog ... then, after about a minute or so, i saw his front legs appear, gradually to be followed by the rest of his body as he climbed out of what i can only assume was a "jelly hole" ...
... i was wishing i hadn't sold my super-duper 100-300mm zoom, but then i realized that if i hadn't the huge lens would've been back in the apartment on my equipment shelf ...
... later in the day i stopped to take a break at the father rasle monument ...
... somewhere within this scene is the exact spot where the english took the jesuit priest's body and mutilated it, ending by ripping out his heart and cutting his body into pieces ... his "crime" was attempting to transcribe the abanaki language into writing so he could introduce the bible to them in their own tongue ...
... despite this, it is a quiet, peaceful place, and the friendly ghosts kept the black flies away as i took a little nap ...
... after i returned home in mid-afternoon i got sick again ... once again recovering, i drove out to east pond, thinking ann would know stuff about fixing me, and, if not, a nice boat ride and swim in the cool water couldn't do any harm ...
... something i've never seen, on the west end of the lake the cormorants had taken over the perches normally occupied by osprey ... rather impressing when you consider their webbed feet aren't really all that suited for doing this sort of balancing act ...
... bella sensed i hadn't been feeling well ...
... as the sun set we met up with bob brooks, bass fisherperson most absolutely extraordinaire ...
... bob and his little boat on the lake are as my trusty bmw f650cs motorcycle and i are on a windy open road—fast, fast, fast ...
... as chuck skippered us back to the cove the loons bid us adieu ...
... i'm feeling better, cross fingers, but even if i wasn't, still, this was a wonderful day ...