Normally we would take all the kids to the Wild Center, but because it's getting so expensive for us all to go, we decided to do something a little different this time around. Last time we were up, we visited the Wild Center and got to see the Raquette River that runs right behind the center and flows into Tupper. At the time, we thought that it would be cool to take a canoe trip on it.
Well, this year, Rebecca and I found out that the Wild Center does paddling tours of that section of the river, both in canoes and on paddleboards. Of course, when she heard that, Rebecca was all in for a paddleboard trip.
The river here is wide, slow and beautiful!
It may look like dry ground here, but I promise there's a river under all that grass.
A couple of views of the active beaver lodge that is on the river. Fortunately, the Raquette is too big for them to dam, but they still use this area as a home.
Rebecca's guide showed them all the various water plants that you can find in the river. This area of the river is very slow and winding, so there is a lot of diverse plant life in the water.
On another day, Olivia and I took a canoe tour on the same section of river. It was super windy on our day and our canoe was so light, we kept getting blown around. It was quite an adventure! That didn't stop us from having an amazing time, though.
We got really close to the beaver lodge from the opposite side from where Rebecca saw it.
We spotted a flock of Canada geese.
And some turtles hiding in the weeds. And like Rebecca, we got to hear all about the various plants in the river along with some of the logging history of the area.
On our walk back up to the car, I spotted this maple that had decided that September was close enough to fall to show its colors. Gorgeous!
