The Elusive Moose

There is a gorgeous river down highway 20 just a little ways from us..it's a fork of the Snake River, we think, called Henry's Fork of the Snake River....They rent kayaks for 12.50 for about a two hour float down the river, AND they said there have been as many as six moose spotted along the river! We met a couple at the last campground, Darren and Joyce of America by RV blogging fame, and they had terrific moose photos from the same float!  We REALLY want to see moose, they are hard to find!

We decided on the day of the float to rent a canoe...Both of us really don't like sit upon kayaks and with the camera and gear, and an easy float with slow moving current, we decided that a canoe might be a better choice. Sparky was the sternsman (she likes being in control--and those are SPARKY'S words, folks) and Eldy was the lookout.....It was a gorgeous day...the first trip out starts at 9:00, and after having been on a moose hunt by kayak last year, we knew that would be kinda late to see moose, but we thought we'd try anyway....that trip last year started at 5:30 AM!

A beautiful float, but NO moose....drat!  We're thinking that we might try a later in the day float next time if we get the chance. We made the mistake of not exploring the "fingers" of the river when we went out for the float. Bet we missed something there! The rental place at Mack's Inn only has a 4:00 PM trip out as their last one so that may not be late enough...but hey, it's wildlife! They don't show up when you want them to, they are on their own schedule! We know they are in the area. The local newspaper for Island Park, Idaho (where we are staying in Valley View RV Park) had a big article on watching out for moose on highway 20, the "longest main street in the USA".

We saw an osprey or a young eagle, we are not sure which...

We saw ducks and debris.....

And plenty of heron, but no moose!

The same day we went on the float, we decided to go driving at dusk and explore some ponds and other settings we had heard about...One was the Big Springs area in the Targhee National Forest. It's 4 /12 miles back from the main road, off highway 20, about 8 miles from VV campground. THAT was a fabulous place to go looking, lots of ponds but again, no moose. That's ok, we found some fantastic trails in the Big Spring area for biking and hiking--ATV/snowmobile trails all over the place! Heck, those trails were in better shape than the Hiawatha Trail we attempted last week! We might go back to explore Big Springs again with our bikes...beautiful area.....

Tomorrow, we change locations. At the time of our "dropping in" at Valley View, we already had a Labor Day weekend reservation at the Rainbow Point Campground in the Targhee National Forest. So we are moving over there. It is actually a little closer to the west entrance of Yellowstone. We checked our site out over there while we were at Valley View to make sure NO BRANCHES are going to impede Sparky's flawless execution of backing Eldy and the Tiffin  into the site, and it looks good...shouldn't be any problem! We didn't check the air card signal over there, but we'll git 'er done as far as the blog goes, one way or another...there's so much to share!  See you in the Targhee National Forest tomorrow!