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“What did you learn today?” At the beginning of our Wild Child adventure, I tell my students to be prepared to answer this question. None of us really know what the response will be. A lot can happen during a few hours in the Jocassee Gorges. At the beginning of our exploration, I tell them facts. So many facts. I am certain that my infectious enthusiasm and confident exposition will fill their heads with at least some of those facts. And then I get off the boat and into the wild. We feel the tickling sensation of millipede feet crawling over our hands, and the fuzziness of soft moss on the river rocks. We taste the tartness of a sourwood leaf, and the sweetness of a ripe muscadine. We hold a chunk of saprolitic rock and break it apart. We feel the power of the Thompson River as we swim into the current below a chilly cascade. We (well, some of us!) feel the smooth muscular skin of a shiny black rat snake. We hear the call of the belted kingfisher and we see a bald eagle circle down and land in a tall pine. We experience so many reasons to love this wild place, and yet I have the nerve to ask them, “What did you learn today?” ~Steve Lewis, JLT Guide and JWC Instructor