1 month competed! Time has flown by so quickly here in Nashville. We’ve all done a lot of surveys during the past 2 and a half weeks and we’re all starting to develop our own rhythms and schedules. Here’s a recap of the past two weeks:
Two members of our team are no longer with us for different reasons and to help us out while we get new team members, Bud from the Atlanta team was kind enough to come up to Nashville. Bud has done a great job thus far and we’ll be sad to see him leave us.
On Tuesday, June 11th, we completed our second conservation project day. Learning about the area and it’s geography was something Mike thought would be a great idea so we drove 2 hours to Mammoth Cave National Park and learned all about the sinkholes in the area by touring the museum, walking the caves in the New Cave Entrance Tour, and hiked a few miles through the park’s trails. Mammoth Cave has over 400 miles of underground caves and getting to walk in the caves was a great experience. Mammoth Cave National Park is a beautiful place, above and below the ground. And in case you were wondering, there weren’t any mammoths in the cave, just thousands of crickets and bats!
Thursday, June 20th, was the date of our third conservation project day and we decided that we enjoyed hiking through Beaman Park and Mammoth Cave NP so much that we should put a little back in to our local trail system. We got in contact with Amber and Casey, USACE Park Rangers on Percy Priest Lake, and set up a date to clear out some trails at one of our survey sites, Cook Recreation Area. It was hot, humid, and full of spiders, ticks, and mosquitos but we got it done. Now there are trails for the public to use as it warms up a little more and more people start to use the park. So, if you’re in the area go check them out!
Outside of surveying the sites and our conservation projects though we’ve all tried to enjoy Nashville this summer in our own ways. Mike went to go hear one of his favorite songwriters, Shawn Camp, play live at the Station Inn last week and really enjoyed it. With so much live music everywhere, it’s no wonder why Nashville is known as “Music City”. I decided to go back to Mammoth Cave NP on day and backpacked through the trails one afternoon. If you go, watch out for daddy long leg spiders, they’re absolutely everywhere! Bianca decided to go see her favorite animal at the Nashville Zoo, the tigers. From the jungle setting to the paw prints along all the walkways, visiting the zoo was an awesome experience. The rest of us, are all happy to report that no poo was flung at her by the monkeys. Darrel decided that he would test his table tennis skills against Nashville’s finest at the Nashville Ping Pong Club’s weekly tournament. Unfortunately, the competition was stiff and he went 0-3. Turns out the club houses a few of best players in the USA with one guy ranked in the Top 10! With this tough of competition to train against, he’ll be well on his way to Rio de Janeiro in 2016! And last but not least, Bud has used his free time to learn how to cook. No word yet on his catch phrase or if he’ll be starring on the Food Network anytime soon but it certainly smells good!
Nashville and the past two weeks have definitely treated us all very well and the next two weeks should be just as fun.
Till next time,
Roy Cazares
Nashville Visitor Use Survey Team
