I did not pay much attention to it before although I notice something is being built there for years. I attended the wine festival and other activities there. It is a wonderful nature park.

Today Cy and Alan presented me the history of its development. Thanks for their wonderful preparation for so many materials. It is interesting to see the original Symphony Woods is now changed to Inner Arbor Plan. There were three key features which caught my eye:

1) It is fine to have a gigantic caterpillar. Kids may call it the Caterpillar park in the future.  The cost of maintaining it may be huge given all the trees nearby and such a big metal structure.

2) The 300-foot picnic table close to the little Patuxent parkway seems a difficult choice. It is very noisy to have a normal conversation there. Then we may have to build a noise-cancellation wall there.  People may need some privacy on the picnic table.

3) The random S-shaped, not connected trails seems a little odd to me. I don’t think I would be brave enough to let my little kids play there if I could not see them play under my eye. If it is for family with kids, we need open space for the kids to play and the parents can watch them from the sides. Considering so many trees and non-flat terrain, there is a risk there.

The problem now is that CA approved it before. Let’s hope the best and move forward. Anyway, it will take probably 20 years to finish all the constructions there.  Who know what will happen in the long term?

I love the Merriweather Post Pavilion idea. It gives me some feeling of wildness and nature. I recalled some experience in Georgia ten years ago. There have been consistent complains on the noise generated by those concerts held at Merriweather. I do see why there are different opinions. For those people participated in the concerts, noise usually is not an issue at all. For people living nearby for 30 years, they began to feel this strong rock and roll. They are thinking “their” community is changing to the way they don’t like. Undoubtedly we should seek a solution to mitigate the noise.