Went caving over the weekend. It seems like we've been working on the Blowing Sink project for years. Oh, right, it has been two years. I want to go in a different cave. For those that don't know, Blowing Sink is a cave that goes down to the Edwards Aquifer, and this is a project Bev has been leading. We've been working on stabilizing a passage so that the City of Austin can get better and safer access for scientists to study the aquifer. Also, the fire department wants to use the cave as a training cave for their cave rescue program. It's in a less consolidated formation, and the passage we are working on was succeptible to collapse. We've poured approximately 2000lbs of concrete in the passage. Each pour consists of about 3-4 trips of hauling equipment, building forms, and finally mixing concrete in small buckets to pour into the forms. The pic below is from a previous trip. That's Mark from the city on the left, Nathan in the front, Bev on the Right. I forget who is in the back. This is about 90ft underground. Yes, this is what I do. (Well when I can)

This is a pic that my friend Trevor took. I like it:


The new pit transportation for your next lawnmower race: Cruzin Cooler
Oh yeah, we all need one. You can even get a trailer for it (Thanks Naomi).

This is probably the calmest I've ever seen Lake Amistad (The reservoir where I do my fieldwork, on the border between Texas and Mexico. Thats Texas on the left and Mexico on the right):
Glass all day. Days like this, fieldwork is easy. I know there will be payback... Next time the waves will be crashing over the bow.

cheers,
J