This was “investigation week” in Lost Forest! That’s one week. The story began in late June. Omitting a few weeks for Cherry’s peacock adventure, the rest of the time was devoted to a backyard party at Ranger Shaw’s house, followed by the “vacation” at Chedderland. That would be around 8 weeks, though I didn’t do an exact count. The point is, little time was spent on anything approaching an investigation. To be fair, it’s not as if the pre-Rivera “Mark Trail” was an orthodox nature reporter, either. We rarely saw him taking photos on assignment, much less writing his stories and articles. 

So this week showed summary views (I presume) of taking water samples, conducting interviews, and working and writing on the laptop. At least, this investigating sequence presents a part of the Tradition we rarely see, even if it was severely truncated. But is it actually the end of the story? I don’t know. Happy Trail did proclaim they were finished. 

Cherry was impressed by Mark and Happy’s energy and father-son bonding. Rusty, acting his age, thought they were nuts for working during a vacation.

I will revise my grade to a “C” on the basis of this last week. I have already commented on what I think was a bad choice in the order of events, as well as over-emphasizing the entire Chedderland experience, which Rivera used to sandwich in a week of Cherry’s peacock story. But the story lacked any real sense of drama, suspense, or seriousness.

Leaving out the obvious and repetitious puns, this is an informative snapshot on a bit of otter anatomy. The link of otters and water pollution certainly ties into Mark’s current adventure, though they have no presence in Mark’s story, as far as we’ve seen.