Truck drivers stop at this roadside spring to clean their lights. Most of them use a bucket with a brush but Jack recently got a battery powered pressure washer (not pictured here because we’re camping, not trucking). Some of them use it for drinking water also even though there’s a sign that says it hasn’t been deemed potable. It tastes great! We stopped here in 2020 on our way up north to go “camping with guns” as Jack calls it when he doesn’t get a moose. 🙂
This was Jack’s first heavy haul load. He wasn’t actually part of the a heavy haul division yet but obviously it was a landmark load for him.
You can see the partially melted snow and the dry road. We are almost to that point in the year right now, and you can probably believe that it is an exciting time for us Alaskans who have snow 8 or 9 months of the year!
Happy Spring and Happy Easter!
Snow was falling only 3 weeks ago and now we’re getting 70 and 80 degrees every day! What a crazy spring we’ve had.
The snow is finally gone and what now occurs in Fairbanks, Alaska (as well as in many other northern areas I assume) is that the veil of white puffy stuff is lifted to show gobs and gobs of TRASH!
Yes, trash everywhere. Wet cardboard boxes, broken pieces of Styrofoam, and all forms of plastic like cups, bags, kitchen utensils, food containers of all sizes. You name it, it’s out there. Beer bottles and to-go cups. It’s really sick. But it’s also entertaining. So a few years ago I decided to document this amazing array of trash on a website called www.trashoffairbanks.com. Take a look if you are interested! Here’s a sampling:
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A lady moose visited us the other day, wandering through on her search for bigger and better twigs to nibble. How an animal that size can sustain a pregnancy nibbling twigs, I have no idea. But you can see that she is big in the belly and really is on a search for the best most tender nutritious twigs. She makes her rounds daily I suspect, if our dog’s fear of going outside lately is any indication.
Moose and dogs are natural enemies since dog’s ancestors, wolves, are predators of moose. You would never see our dog trying to take down a moose though (lol). Somehow over the centuries the barking mechanism has taken over for the “try-to-eat” mechanism I guess. You can find examples of the moose-dog feud on You Tube.
Female moose with calves can be quite aggressive and believe it or not, violent. There have been quite a few moose tramplings in Alaska over the years, mostly in Anchorage. At least one man was killed by a moose protecting her calf in 1995.
So, this one doesn’t have a calf but it’s likely that her hormones have kicked in and she would probably not back down from a challenge. I stayed up on the deck totally out of her reach. When a person jogged by with their dog she was very attentive.
As they ran by, she didn’t take her eyes off of them until they were out of sight. And her ears were locked straight forward. I’ve never seen a moose so obviously aware of every movement in its surroundings.
She might be tough, but look at those beautiful eyelashes!
Nice beard, too! 🙂
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The Jack Jessee Blog 