Moosed

Since I've lived in New England I've wanted to see a moose. I've been to Maine many times and seen those ubiquitous yellow signs with a black moose silhouette, but never one up close and in person. Recently I paid a hundred bucks to stay in a lodge in Maine and go on a moose cruise, sort of like a whale watch. See moose we did, but we also encountered other strange creatures.

My friend Denise and I went on this cruise. We got on, and there were about 12 people; couples, some kids, Denise and I, and this woman close to my age who was by herself. We started chatting with her; she was from Bar Harbor, Maine. She had come on the cruise to get away, because it was raining in Bar Harbor. She left the kids and came down for the day. She was really nice and easy to talk to.

The cruise got started, and the Captain, this guy I'd say was in his 60's, asked everyone where they were from. Everybody went around, and when he got to the woman next to us, we said where she was from so we could say the Maine accent: Bah Hahbah. We thought we were pretty funny.

The Captain spewed off facts about the lake and pointed out interesting tree and rock formations. We came to a rocky wall of sorts, and the Captain told us that sometimes young bull moose fell off the land near the wall and they'd be floating dead in the water for 2, sometimes 3 weeks. I was startled by this information, mostly because there were children listening on this cruise. Of course the kids were probably fascinated, because one of them asked if the moose died when they hit the water, or did they die by drowning. The Captain said that was a good question, and he wasn't sure. But come to think of it, there was this bridge in Quichee, Vermont, where 15-20 people jumped to their deaths every year, so maybe they died when they hit the water. Shocked and horrified came close to how I was feeling at this point.

It didn't stop there. He went on to tell the story of a young woman who was free climbing the rock wall last year who got stuck. By the time people noticed her and went to rescue her, she let go and...you guessed it, fell to her death. I was bursting by this point and wanted to know if anyone else thought this guy was morbid or was it just me. I confided in the Bar Harbor woman, saying that every story the Captain told ended with death. She sort of laughed it off. I scrambled to get a piece of paper to jot down the details of this Moose Death Cruise so I could blog it later. All I could find was a band-aid, and Bar Harbor commented. "You're writing on a band-aid." I told her why; I just could not believe all this guy was saying.

Finally the topic turned to something more humane, Maine geese. Whew. He talked about how many geese were in the area, and how they had 4 or 5 eggs at a time. Ahh...life! Unless, of course, the water rose too high from rain, and then the eggs might roll into the lake and...well, you know the rest.

Thank god about that time someone saw a moose, so we were all spared the details of the demise of goose offspring. The cruise went on without any more horror stories, and we actually saw a couple of female moose and babies!

At the end of the cruise, Denise asked our new friend if she'd like to join us for dinner. She declined, saying that she was going to meet her husband for dinner. We parted ways, but saw each other again a few minutes later in the dining room. We saw the woman greet her husband with a kiss and sit down at a table on the other side of the room. Guess who her "husband" was? The Captain. Ewww, I was so weirded out. What???

I had many questions. Why had the Captain and this woman pretended not to know each other at the beginning of the cruise? Why had she sat silently while I dissed her man the entire time? And why the heck, when we asked her to dinner, did she not simply say, "No thanks, the Captain and I are having dinner"? I surmised that she and the Captain were indeed married, just not to each other, and the whole family owned lodge kept their dirty little secret. Denise didn't want to hear it, but I was sick to my stomach. This, right after I had met those other weirdos in New York. What is it with people??

We ran into her in the gift shop after dinner, and it was a perfect opportunity to confront her. I didn't, though, fearing that she'd get the front desk to charge extra to our bill or put something in our food. We just sort of made small talk and fake laughed. Yick.

What makes people act this way? What reason could she have for her behavior? What could she possibly gain? Some people are so strange, I just do not understand. Any theories?

My friend Amy, after hearing the story, remarked, "Well, you saw some moose. Sounds like you saw a coupla loons too!"