Beach Walk and Reading Day

Yesterday's guided walk was advertised as a short, easy walk along the beach to serve as an introduction to Washoe Lake State Park. I ended up with nine people, one of whom had never been to the park and was new to Carson City (yay!). A few had been to the park but not for years. I decided to make it a loop, because I was planning on talking about the sand dunes, so we made a short loop around one sand dune so I could talk about their formation, preservation, and vegetation. We had perfect walking weather too, just a little breezy and close to 60 degrees!

Coming out of the dunes and back onto the beach.

 

This trail leads from the beach to the Maze, a fairly new kid's area.

 

I had been asked to be part of a local elementary school's reading week program, so today I went into town and read to 23 4th graders for 30 minutes. Even though I was a little worried it was higher than their reading level, I chose Adventures of a Nature Guide, by Enos Mills (1870-1922). I read most of the chapter "Waiting for Wildlife" because as I was reading that chapter in preparation for the event, it made me want to put the book down and go outside, to get to know the wildlife in our park as well as he knew his small meadow in Rocky Mountain National Park. We don't have big wooded forests (and very few trees), but what we do have, I want to know!

 

I definitely recommend the book to anyone interested in this profession--he was one of the first  Nature Guides for Rocky Mountain National Park, sort of paving the way for all of us as Park Interpreters!