Our Anchorage campground, bordering two noisy highways, was a dreary necessity, but it backed up to an alluring river trail.  The leafy woods had me so enamored that even the debris from a couple of squatter camps didn’t deter me.  Down the way, the trail led me meandering through a wide-open park.  After weeks in the wilds, the sprawling green seemed unrealistically civilized, and then unreality took an Alaskan turn.  Between the soccer fields and playgrounds and spandexed bikers, Daisy and I came across a moose grazing on a willow thicket, maybe six feet off the path.  With her homely head hidden in the willows, she might have passed for a large horse, but I saw enough to give her wide berth.  Messing with moose, I’m told, can be fatal.  I knew from experience that Daisy would be all for riling it whatever the risk, but I got lucky, and she never noticed it.

Unsure whether a moose was an issue with the locals, I warned the next bicyclist that whizzed by.  He didn’t even glance up.