In July, 2010 my husband and I did a camping trip at Tahquamenon Falls State Park, and set up a tent at the Rivermouth rustic campground. It was a welcome respite during a very stressful time in our lives, when we were searching for our first home. How stressful was it? The whole process had me in tears….more than once! I’m definitely not someone who cries easily, but the whole process left me frustrated beyond my limits more than once.

It was a delightful escape! We had a lovely site overlooking the Tahquamenon River…

 

As for weather, it was  was fairly cooperative – not too hot.  Except for that one afternoon when we escaped a downpour by going to a bar called The Lumberjack in Newberry, MI. We had some cheap pitchers of beer and watched the FIFA World Cup (I believe the U.S. was playing that day).

Later in the trip, we learned that tragedy had struck…a young moose, thought to be only about a year old, had died after being seen frolicking in the river earlier that day. The state’s Department of Natural Resources sent a guy to remove the moose from the river. Even a year-old moose is too big to just remove by hand, so the moose had to be attached to chains – and pulled out by a pick-up truck.

It didn’t take long for a crowd of campers to come to the scene. Some of them with drinks in hand…which quickly turned into a “wake” for the moose, as people reminisced about having seen the moose, expressed their feelings about the moose’s demise. The ranger who removed the moose from the river said the moose likely suffered from brain worms, which would be akin to mad cow disease. this particular moose was tagged and was part of an unsuccessful attempt to introduce moose to the area. RIP, moose! Sad that the only “real” moose I’ve seen in my life was a dead one!