Hello everyone! Say what you want, but I have the best puns out of all the other interns.

This week was definitely one of the best since I’ve been here. One of the things we hear the most working at the visitor center is “how is the float on the river?” or “where would you recommend kayaking on the river?”. And until this point, I’ve just taken other peoples’ words for how fun kayaking certain portions of the river are, but I finally got the opportunity this week. We ran a trash clean-up day for the middle district, meaning several volunteers would be picking up trash in the water or on the shore. Me and my coworker, Macleod, had the opportunity to lead the volunteers down the river, meaning we’d be at the front seeing the national park with nobody in front of us. Honestly, one of the most peaceful experiences I’ve had in my life. We kayaked about 26 miles of river, and needless to say, I skipped cardio at the gym that day. As the summer progresses, we’re starting to see the upper and middle district dry up and in turn, the fish populations seem to dwindle but not substantially. We saw plenty of catfish, bass, carp, and even gar swimming or browsing the riverbed. The snake sightings in turn have been increasing since the fish are easier to see with lower water levels, so we ran into our fair share of cottonmouths and copperheads that day. Hopefully we’ll see a summer storm to help keep the wildlife in balance, but this is one of the driest seasons the river has seen so far according to some of the permanent rangers.

GALLERY :O