Close Encounters of a Wildlife Kind

Frank and I had some wildlife adventures yesterday ourselves. We went to Kincaid Park to cycle along the coastal trail (one of the 127 miles of bike trail in ANC). Coming back from Pt. Woronzof, we saw a porcupine along the side of the road. I've never seen a porcupine in real life before -- never had any idea that they actually lived in Alaska! Frank scared it, and I was worried that it would chase after us like a dog, but it didn't.

That wasn't even the best wildlife viewing of the day -- As we were climbing our own "Mt. Ventoux" at Kincaid at about 7 mph, a bull moose decided to eat his way down the hill. There we were, about 10 ft from a bull moose on the trail! As suggested by guidelines, we stopped and waited for the moose to pass. Of course, it did not. After a while, we decided to chance it by getting off our bikes, walking slowly on the total other side of the trail, less than 5 ft from the moose. The moose did not even twitch his ears at us, which was great.