Wampum

This afternoon Jonah lead us to the very spot where a year ago we'd left the trail and walked down a shelf of agglo rock to the river, and he abandoned his crocs and I my birks and we stepped into the river a second time.

We couldn't wade from shelf to shelf, up to where we'd stopped last year, the water was too high after a week of rain in the Porkys, but we could see it. The vertical where Jonah worked along a ledge knee deep in a pool, and the shelf to to impassibility that formed the other side of that pool. We'd stopped there, on the extended ledge, ankle deep, and watched people in PFDs and helmets work far harder than we had at enjoying a deep riverine setting and the periodic interruptions by kingfishers.

Today we sat, Jonah lolled in my lap, all disability and no ability, watching the bigger water flow. Little fish nibbled our toes and Grace and Kezzie picked loose stones out of the agglo and performed the ritual stoning of the black waters. A kingfisher favored us. Then he got up and lead us back, stopping at one point to reverse back to the last point of ambiguity and retrace the correct path, rather than the equidistant, also fallen-tree encumbered alternative, all the way back to Black River Harbor, the docks, and the cash-for-candy exchanges with the dock storekeeper.

I haven't been certain until today that Jonah has a "normal" sense of memory.

Here are some views (Google is my camera):

View from the docks towards the trail.

Rainbow Falls with last year's water flow (its wicked more now). Note the road-side viewing platform.

Rainbow Falls again, our view from the trail side.

Sandstone Falls. End of our line. Last year this had covey's of PFD-and-helmet quail goosing down the shoots. Not this year.