Change of travel plans & a Moose in campground

It was still raining when we got up this morning at 6:00. We left the RV at 7:30 to go to the ID office here at Elmendorf for my 8:00 appointment. We got there about 7:45 and over half of the seats in the waiting room were occupied. I looked at the sign-in sheet and most of the people who had already signed in didn’t have an appointment.

My name was called a few minutes after 8:00. It took about 15 minutes to get my new ID card. On September 1 my Medicare coverage starts and I had to have my D.E.E.R.S. file updated in the Department of Defense records to get Tricare for Life medical coverage.

We stopped at Burger King for breakfast and then got gas in the Vue at the post gas station. Gas prices had come down 2¢ since yesterday and was now $3.859 a gallon.

Mike called the post office this morning and our mail still has not come in to General Delivery. The main counter at the post office is closed on Saturdays, but we were told that there is a window we can knock on and get our mail if it is there. Otherwise, we will have to have our mail forwarded when it comes in and we’ll have it sent to Skagway when we’re there on August 15th.

We paid for another day’s stay here at the campground ($18) – we had planned on leaving this morning and spending tonight at Glennallen on the way to Valdez.

I was sitting on the sofa after lunch and looked out the window and saw a young bull moose walking across the road a couple of campsites over from us. I said “Moose!”, Tinker jumped off the sofa and started barking and Mike grabbed the camera, put on his shoes and ran out the door. By this time the moose was walking through the trees over to the next row of campsites and Mike was going right after him.

From Moose at Elmendorf FamCamp

Mike got a lot of photos of the moose and took several movies of him.

From Moose at Elmendorf FamCamp

At one point Mike was hiding behind a birch tree taking photos and movies, when the moose started walking towards him.

From Moose at Elmendorf FamCamp

Mike said when the moose was about 15 feet away, he was deciding whether to stay behind the tree or retreat – he decided to retreat and forgot that the camera was still filming a movie. Mike said when he was hiding behind the tree, he was trying to think himself thinner.

It rained all morning and was 49°, but by noon the rain had quit and later this afternoon the sun came out and warmed up to the low 50’s.

Moose Alert! Just as I was writing, Mike said “Moose” and we saw the bull moose walking across the road near our RV. There were several of us from the campground out taking photos of him and traffic on the road next to the campground was stopped with people taking photos of him.

From Moose at Elmendorf FamCamp