Amy American Mink, Randy River Otter, and Wendy Weasel

Dear Reader,

Larry the Letter Carrier sailed into town the other day delivering mail on the riverbanks. I started to tell him about our day at the river water park and he was like, whoa mate, put it in a letter for my online friends to read. Let me start by introducing myself. My name is Amy American Mink. And my letter is about the fun I had at the Big Piney River Water Park. Big Piney River is in Missouri, where me and my friends Randy River Otter and Wendy Weasel live.

Me, Randy and Wendy are best friends. We call ourselves the Semi-A team. Which stands for Semi-Aquatic. The three of us spend lots of time in water as well as on land. Randy prefers the water, Wendy likes land more, but I am happy in both! So, we make time for running and climbing as well as water activities.

We decided to take a trip to Big Piney River Water Park. Randy’s favorite ride was the Big Piney splish and splash water slide. River otters love sliding into the water! Randy’s dad made a 10-foot slide for Randy to slide on anytime! But the water park slide was 30 feet high!

So, three times the fun. Plus, there were three lanes so we could all go down at the same time. Being good climbers, we made it up the 30-foot climb without any problems. Once at the top we were able to look out over the whole water park. It was amazing. The slides were bright colors of green, yellow and blue and water was quickly swishing down. 1…2…3…yippee! We all jumped and splished and splashed together. Whoa, we were up and over, down and around, sliding faster and faster until we slid into the pool at the bottom. So much fun!

Wendy Weasel liked The Piney River Lazy River Ride. We all grabbed an inner tube and made ourselves comfortable as we gently glided over the river into the basin. It was a great way to relax.

Next was my favorite water park activity - the Dive and Repeat. You had the choice to climb 10, 20 or 30 feet and dive into the water! Once you swim back to the surface you climb out and repeat the diving as often as you like! Wendy preferred climbing to diving so she did the 30-foot climb and dive but didn’t do a repeat. Randy did the

20-foot climb and dive - he managed to dive about 60 feet into the water. Randy repeated the dive a few more times. Randy and Wendy decided to rest on the riverbanks and watch me dive. I decided to only do the 10-foot climb, but my dive was 100 feet into the water! I quickly swam back to the surface and repeated the dive, again, and again and again…Randy and Wendy shouted out “how many more times are you going to dive”? I yelled back, “I want to beat my record of 100 dives in a day”! Being the great friends they are, Wendy and Randy settled back in the summer sun and applauded every dive.

Summer fun, great friends - an American Mink can’t ask for much more than that!

Remember, writing is right on! So, write a comment below.

Do you remember? What is the state where Amy, Randy, and Wendy live? How deep did Randy River Otter dive? What did the three friends call themselves?

Additional Tidbits: Baby American Minks are called kits, a group of weasels are called a boogle, river otters can hold their breath for 8 minutes under water. The American mink, river otter and weasel are all nocturnal (they are more active at night). And all three of them have scent glands like a skunk – so they are all stinky animals!!