It was time to depart.  But we still had two cities scheduled to see and things to do.  We were greeted with an enormous Hummer SUV and our destination was the Alaska Wildlife Conservation Center, a nonprofit organization that cares for injured or orphaned animals on 144 acres located just off the Seward Highway.  I thought it was a wonderful place to visit not only because we got to get out and see so many majestic animals up close, but more importantly, knowing they were there for help.  And our patronage was serving to help as well.  We saw adorable foxes curled up cozily, a brown bear sitting on his haunches, owls blinking at us sleepily, and my favorite was the biggest moose I had ever encountered.  He was sweet and shy but I notice he was not without companionship.  There were also bison, elk, caribou and musk ox.  Any time we get a chance to support wildlife or wild places we try to do so.  They are our true national treasure.  In his book “The Wild Places” travel writer Robert Macfarlane notes:

“Wild animals, like wild places, are invaluable to us precisely because they are not us.  They are uncompromisingly different.  The paths they follow, the impulses that guide them, are of other orders.  The seal’s holding gaze, before it flukes to push another tunnel through the sea, the hare’s run, the hawk’s high gyres;  such things are wild.  Seeing them, you are made briefly aware of a world at work around and beside our own, a world operating in patterns and purposes that you do not share.  These are creatures, you realise that live by voices inaudible to you.”