Greg D. Moore (Strider) wrote:
"Pat Flannery" wrote in message
dakotatelephone...
What really surprised me though in regards to wildlife was the source of
the strange deep bellows that would sometimes come out of the northeast
when I was working nights at our airport. Apparently there are wild moose
wandering around just northeast of town, although I've never seen one.


A friend of mine used to be a park ranger at Wind Cave National Park.

The stories he'd tell of the questions they were asked were too funny.

One pointed to a map of the cave and asked, "Has all this been explored?"

Another asked how much the cave weighed.

The best was the one who came in asking what "Dangaroos" were.

They couldn't figure out what she meant until she went outside and pointed
at the sign:

Warning: Moose are Dangerous

I'm just trying to picture them hanging out in shelter belts, which are
only around 50 feet wide. That's about all the trees you find out on farms.
When I was young we went to Rushmore Cave in South Dakota:
http://www.beautifulrushmorecave.com/
We went into this building and waited till enough tourists had assembled
for a tour of the cave. I was expecting the next step would be hiking
over to the cave entrance, but the tour guide just walked over to the
wall, opened the door, and we were staring into the cave itself.
I couldn't have been more surprised if he had opened the door and there
had been a live lion behind it. :-)
North Dakota is pretty poor in the cave department:
https://www.dmr.nd.gov/ndgs/ndnotes/caves/caves_h.asp
I imagine the scraping action (as well as the weight) of the glaciers
that covered the eastern part of the state destroyed any that were near
the surface around here long ago, while they were busily grinding up all
the fossils as well.

Pat