And then, for a moment, our eyes were forced shut and we collectively gasped for breath as a burst of sunlight ruptured the billowy cloud cover turning the gentle purples and blues of a looming dusk to a blinding, hot, liquid white. As our eyes adjusted, we witnessed a single, thick, brilliant, luminous ray dart across the firmament and envelope the mighty beaver in a warm swath of delicious light. The beaver rose to meet it, bucking and snapping wildly as the golden finger spread its warmth gently across the trembling surface, dipping deeply into the translucent folds and soaking them in warm, radiant hues, tracing each sun-kissed curve and playafied edge as the beaver undulated and flapped in the breeze above our upturned faces. Our backs arched and our mouths hung agape as we held our breaths and clenched our fists, hoping that a radiant drop might be wrested from this joyous dance and fall onto our parched lips like a shooting star crashing into the far off hills...

And then Bonnie cracked open a bottle of Mezcal. Holding it proudly above her head in one hand, a shaker of salt and a sweaty lime flagrantly waving in her other, she shouted, "Body shots in the Beaver Den!" Allison smiled devilishly and whispered something about ingesting salt being important on account that you loose so much sodium when you sweat on the playa. Jess tipped her hat to each of us as we followed Bonnie inside like baby beaver pups trailing after their momma. (to be continued...)