MOOSE!

Went on a hike with cousin B and his swell girlfriend Jess on Saturday.


We climbed Osceola and there was a rainbow at the top.


Plus there was this crazy lady.

In the fall there tend to be a lot of Europeans hiking in the Whites, like the German family that reached the peak a little before we did, where they met its resident scamp, a wee red squirrel straight out of central casting. He held his luxuriously fluffy tail curled just so as he darted across the mountaintop, coming closer and closer to each lunching hiker, testing the waters for chow. Would his adorableness win him some snacks?

Well of course it would! Although not from us.

It was cousin B who noticed one of the German kids, a boy of about 10, trying to get the rodent's attention. "What's quite impressive is that he realized it's an American critter and so he needed to speak to it in English," said B.

What wasn't so impressive was that the kid thought it was a chipmunk. "Chippymunky...chippymunky...GET OVER HERE!" was his siren call.

Here's some big mushrooms on a birch branch. I took this shot on the way down. I regret that I did not get a shot of the mother moose and her calf that cousin B spotted on the trail in front of us. It was my first in-woods moose sighting in nearly 15 years of hiking. And it was amazing. I didn't believe B at first because the moose made nary a sound. B said he heard one branch snap and then...there they were. I only saw the calf myself because the sun was setting but it was horse-sized. The mother was apparently enormous.

It was quite an afternoon.