bits and pieces

Here is Erica's advice on wildlife, delivered shortly after we got to Denali:
If you see a bear and it doesn't see you, walk around it or away. If it sees you, wave your arms over your head and say "Hey bear!" loudly. It might false rush you (!), but stand your ground. If "contact is imminent," curl up in a fetal position. Don't ever run away.
If a moose runs at you, run away. They don't false rush.
A caribou is just silly. It might hit you with a hoof or something as it tryto run away, but they aren't dangerous.
You could probably poke a dall sheep in the eye with a pencil as long as you moved slowly. They'll run away if you move like a wolf (I have no idea how to do that anyway).

I have found meat in my food three times in the past month, once in a truck stop outside of Portland (undefinable bit of something), once at a creepy roadside cafe in Canada (big chunk of sausage) and once at the Blue Willow in Tucson (ham, in the tofu scramble!). In the three years I've been a vegetarian, that's never happened to me before even once.

On the road back down from Alaska, I saw a truck full of pigs. What came out of my mouth was, "Is them pigs?" I was so shocked that that could come out of my mouth. It may be the most gramatically incorrect thing I've ever said.