Toll-taker Willy

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The last day of Ijams summer Adventure Camp is bittersweet, but they had one last character encounter to cheer them up! 

The adventurous kids found the hillbilly creek pirate Crawdad Willy guarding his lonely outpost on the eastern edge of the nature center. 

When they came upon him, he was passing his time reading the "poyotree" of Miss Emily Dickinson. "The past is such a curious creature, To look her in the face, A transport may reward us, or a disgrace."

After they helped him decipher her cryptic words, he taught them a bit about the critters that share his "crick." Things like damselflies, dragonflies, water snakes, hellgrammites, water striders and, of course, crawdads. But did he say, "sally-amander"? And notice the pickerel frog in a jar around his neck. That's his buddy. 

To pass through the gate, the campers were each marked with creek mud after giving Crawdad a gold coin...it is called Toll Creek, after all! 

And Willy be the toll-taker.

Ijams is the home of imaginative learning.

 - Jennifer Roder, guest scribe

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