Down In The River

I'm back for another episode of my journey with Alice. This next stop on our adventure was a little disappointing and very exciting at the same time. This place I took these pictures from is a place where you can stop to rest, and look down onto the river.

This place is at the edge of a sheer drop, down into, I guess what would be called a canyon, with a river running through it. There is a bench to sit on up here, and look at the river. There is one problem with that. The view of the river has become overgrown with trees and bushes this year. It's a shame because the view used to be a good one.

The river is blocked by something down there, but it's very hard to see, especially in this top picture. I didn't get a very good picture of it, only because I didn't think of it at the time. The pictures are still very important to this story. What seems to be blocking the river, is a beaver dam.

I never knew this before that day, because this is the first beaver dam that I've ever seen. Plus, the dam is built around some big logs, which I think are much too heavy for any beavers to move. I learned later that they will gnaw at a big tree until they cut it down. They'll do that in a place like this, to use as part of their dam.

Now, maybe you're thinking that just this dam might not be very exciting. Without a beaver, it's not much of a story. Ahh, but there was a beaver. For those of you who are unfamiliar with beaver's, they are large semi-aquatic rodents. They stay in or around the water much of the time, and use those dams as their home.

As we were resting up on the overlook, Alice saw a shadow moving around in the water. She seems to be able to see everything. She pointed it out to me, and it became easy for me to see as well. It was a creature, about the size of a small dog, swimming around in the river. I knew immediately what it was. I told Alice about it, and we got up to try and get a closer look.

I thought I could get a photo of this beaver, so we started running after it. As soon as we got close to the spot we had seen it, it had already disappeared. We were both really excited by this time. Of course neither one of us had ever seen a beaver, not even the shadow of one. I grew up in the city mostly, and Alice isn't old enough to have seen very much at all yet.

We were about to give up, but just then the shadow of the beaver came back out. We saw it swimming around in slow meandering circles. We began the chase again! Unfortunately, as soon as we got close, it was gone again. As I said before, the view from up there wasn't very good. It was easier to see the beaver from where we started, and now it was gone for good.

I said at the beginning of this story that it was a little disappointing, but also very exciting. We didn't get any pictures of the beaver, but we had a lot of fun chasing it. It was amazing just to find out that this creature is down there. Now, I know to look for that beaver whenever I come back here. Maybe one of these times I'll have a good photo to show you.

That was the end of this part of my journey into Wonderland with the now legendary Alice. This was a fun part of our adventure, but there is more to come. It was a very exciting everyday adventure for me, and for Alice. See you next time.


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