I recently visited Blackwater River State Park. Not my beloved Blackwater Falls State Park, but a new place, somewhere I’d never been before. Because I’m just a few steps beyond normal, I will admit to googling Florida’s Blackwater River to see if it was part of West Virginia’s Blackwater River. Stupid, really. I didn’t think it was but stranger things have happened, right? I’ve been on the New River in three different states. I just wanted to verify my facts before I wrote a blog post, okay?

Anyhow, we wandered for an hour and a half on the Chain of Lakes trail, along the Blackwater River. We hiked to a river swamp, through a river swamp, and by a chain of ox-bow lakes. An ox-bow lake is formed when a river changes course, turning a U-shaped pool into a larger body of water. A tidbit of trivia; Australians call ox-bow lakes “billabongs”! I love that word!

I had kind of wanted to see an alligator, from a distance, of course, but the only critters we saw were turtles and squirrels. I’m convinced that Pepper is a squirrel dog. I can’t figure out how a thirty-two pound mutt has the strength to knock over a significantly heavier adult but unless my feet are braced and I anticipate the lunge, that dog can drag me through the mud when he spots a squirrel!