Where's The Beef - I Mean Moose?

As I mentioned in yesterday's blog, my friend Stuart and I drove up Poudre Canyon (located just west of Fort Collins, Colorado) Thursday afternoon to check out the fall colors.  The Aspens were indeed very beautiful, and when we exited the canyon we wound up in the North Park Valley.  It is cattle country, and if you remember the long ago Wendy's commercial  where the elderly woman asks "Where's the beef," I can tell you for sure it is definitely out here. Lots and lots of cattle. But I'll be damned if we saw a single moose.  We stopped at the Arapaho National Wildlife refuge, seen in the photograph on the left along with Stuart, but we only spotted a single chipmunk.

In fact, before we got to Walden, we stopped at the Colorado State Forest Moose Welcome Center, but there wasn't a single live moose to welcome. Only a moose made of barbed wire out in front and a stuffed one inside, seen in the photograph on the right.  There was a big tablet of paper on an easel titled "critter sightings," but not a thing was written on it.  I don't mean to criticize, but the Moose Welcome Center seemed to have a lot of staff with not a lot to do, and so if that is the case, I suggest they go out and find some live moose that they can bring back for visitors to welcome. I hear they are affectionate beasts and would probably not mind having a collar and leash put on them for a walk back to the Moose Welcome Center. Just don't let them get a look at that stuffed moose inside.

We arrived in the actual town of Walden (population 608) around 4:30 in the afternoon and stayed until 5:00. They are certainly trying to cement their reputation as "moose central, " what with places like the Moose Jaw Cafe and such, but the only animals I saw going down  Main Street were cattle being hauled by trucks to the slaughterhouse.  No moose walking down the middle of the street like in the television show Northern Exposure. We did stop in to look around the Antlers Inn, the entrance of which is in the photograph on the left.  It definitely evoked an earlier time, and seemed quite quaint.  Since the town of Walden was established in 1889, I assume the hotel was built not too long after.  It now serves the occasional tourist and a heck of a lot of hunters, who will be heading to the Walden area starting October 1st to blast the living hell out of elk, deer, and moose, too.  So maybe that is why they are so hard to find. It is all starting to make sense.