Thursday was another sleep-in day. I was up around 9 and we headed out to the middle of nowhere, Maine. On the way there, we stopped into a cute little no-traffic-light old town appropriately called Old Town. We thought that the Old Town Canoe Factory gave tours of the canoe-making process, but we were only allowed to see their factory outlet featuring: you guessed it, canoes.

Old Town was done in a blink. By now we were getting really hungry. So what do you do when you're in the middle of Maine and there's nothing to see/do? Why, you go to the nearest Chinese buffet possible, of course! Hang Wong was about an hour north of Old Town, but it was totally worth the wait. I'm pretty sure the good Lord put me on the earth to put Chinese buffet establishments out of business. We ate like champs.

With four hours to kill before the moose tour, we drove into downtown Millinocket. Such a cute little town! We parked outside of the village square while I started writing up the past five day's worth of blog entries. By 3:30, I was done and we headed to our destination: the "Maine-ly Photos" van.

Vicki, a professional nature photographer, is a friend of Maine-ly Photos owner Dale. She was our guide on the road that we were assured we'd spot moose on. We got out there and almost right away, we caught a cow (female moose) out on the water. The scenery was almost more impressive than my first natural moose encounter. Check out the setting this moose was in!

We drove on and then spotted a mother and calf in the water a few minutes later. They were so far away. We hoped to find something closer (especially me, since I was cursing that I left my telephoto lens in Richmond...could have come in handy on whale-watching day too, dammit) We came right up on a deer, who was more curious at us than anything, before finally darting off into the woods.

We saw a two-year-old bear crossing the road. It was a black bear that Vicki had been following for quite some time. He was out of sight before any of us could get our cameras ready. Then, we passed a moose right outside the van! We backed up and got out of the car to get a closer look. Unfortunately, a truck came whizzing by and scared the moose into the woods. We couldn't whine too much since the road we were on was a logging road- all access priority goes to logging trucks. It's their road.

On our way back, we passed a pond with a bull moose right in the center... then spotted some much closer moose! Then another deer with a fawn.. Then another two moose! Then another black bear!

All in all, it was a fantastic tour. Even if we hadn't seen any critters, the tour would have been worth seeing just for the scenery! The sun setting over the woods and the beautiful water settings were breathtaking. I couldn't believe the colors and how vivid they were in the sky. Well hell, just see for yourself!

When the tour was done, we got some McLobster Rolls. And before you wonder, they were really good.