A challenging hike for sure, with more than 2,000 feet of elevation gain over 6.5 miles (out and back).
We reveled in the green hills and enjoyed some early wildflowers on our 6-mile, double-loop hike.
Then I met the Weed Wrench. And the oh-so-satisfying sound of thick taproots being wrenched (literally!) from the earth.
Unaccustomed to sharing his territory with humans, a tom turkey paid us no heed as he strutted his stuff.
I thought about Second Harvest. Having volunteered there many years ago (one time?), and subsequently supported them, I pulled up their calendar of volunteer shifts. [Whoa!] Plenty of opportunities. I picked one.
The scale of the operation was mind-boggling. As a new volunteer, the orientation was a bit overwhelming. Working in a section of a huge warehouse, we would be doing “food rescue.” Checking dates on perishables, discarding spoiled produce, and sorting everything: cans and jars go here, snacks go there, baked goods go here, healthy beverages go there ... on and on. Spoiled produce would be collected to feed farm animals. At the end of our shift, we swept the floors and sanitized our carts and work surfaces.
Second Harvest picks up the food (and other staples, like laundry detergent and paper goods) from retail stores and other sources, and supplies it to local organizations (e.g., community food banks) that distribute it to the people who need it.
I left thoroughly impressed. The work was well-organized. My fellow volunteers were eager and diligent workers. Our impact was huge: sorting through and processing pallets of food that would help hundreds of households. Products that, until a few years ago, would have simply been dumped in landfills.
When I got home, I signed up for my next shift. I can do this.
Equipped with little booklets featuring the top 100 flowers found in prior years (grouped by color), we could often figure out what we were seeing. (Tomcat clover, below.)
The ranger had hiked through the area a few days before and spotted a few rarities; would we find them?
We had paused for a closer look at a plant when something caught my eye. I definitely don't remember the name of every plant I've seen, but I have a good chance of realizing when I'm looking at something I've rarely (or never) seen before. I gently lifted the drooping stalk with the tip of my hiking pole. “What's this?” I asked. “You found it!” exclaimed the ranger. (Drops of gold..)
Next year ... ?
Until this year.
The MS Society would have a booth there to promote their Waves to Wine cycling event, and needed volunteers to help staff it. In return, we'd get a free pass. [Sign me up!]
While we waited at the entrance gate, I chatted with a guy wearing a Sea Otter-emblazoned jacket. He'd been attending the festival for 30 or more years and told us that it would draw 74,000 people. [Yikes!] On the weekend, the crowds would be so thick that you would just have to go with the flow of bodies (and bikes).
This being Friday, the vibe was more to my liking. A few families, plenty of room for people to meander or even ride their bikes through the exhibit area.
Mountain bikes, mostly. Which is what I expected, and why I'd never felt drawn to this event.
Never say never ... over the weekend, lots of people would pass the Bike MS booth and learn about the cause. Maybe some would actually sign up to raise money and ride? But, well, the Sea Otter is mostly about mountain biking.
I managed to engage with a few guys who paused at our booth and seemed intrigued: hailing from Brazil, Italy, and Spain. Which was consistent with the hype I'd heard about this being the world's biggest cycling festival.
I had a little time to wander; enough to find the Bianchi booth and confirm, for a friend, that they are indeed not making an electrified road bike in the size she needs (43). Enough time to know that I would not come back to brave the crowds and explore the full event on Sunday. [Or, probably, ever.]
I knew about this event, but had no idea how big it was: Fielding something like 21,000 participants entails distributing a lot of bibs (race numbers) in advance. And after so many years, the organizers were, well ... organized.
When two people were needed to staff a number look-up station and only one hand went up, I claimed the second spot. Good decision, as it turned out my partner had experience—same role, second volunteer shift.
People could also register at our station, and a few did. We were there to shepherd them through the sign-up process, if they got stuck. One woman explained that while she's normally part of a family group, there would be only two of them this year. “Will you be there?” she asked. No, I explained; I'm not a runner. “You could walk. Next year!”
True enough. The 5k would be easy.
Next year?
“Albert” approached—a man with wild white hair, a bushy mustache, and a name tag noting E=mc² explained today's Blood Drive Olympics: estimate how much time it would take to donate your pint (within seconds) and win a gift card.
This was not your run-of-the-mill blood drive.
There was a flapper in a sequined sheath, and a reverend. Perhaps he frightened Count Dracula away? [Not a single vampire in sight.]
Apparently this group of volunteers has been hosting this event for many years; a couple of them spent hours, last night, decorating the hall. A dealer was set up at a blackjack table to entertain any waiting donors if things backed up.
My time estimate fell short, but following a consultation between Einstein and the reverend, I was granted a dispensation and awarded my prize.
The “special event” was us!
Given two options, they chose to return to San José's Japanese Friendship Garden.
In addition to weeding (by hand, regrettably without the proper tools), we cleared debris from the still-empty koi ponds.
Before:
My disappointment in my fellow human beings is evidently unbounded. But today, some of us gave our time and energy to make this little pocket of the world a nicer place.
There is no shortage of opportunities to do volunteer work in the Bay Area, and that's probably true wherever you live. I'm not ready to commit myself to a rigid schedule, so I've been looking for suitable one-time events. That also means I can keep an eye on the weather forecast before signing up, and gives me the chance to sample the various organizations that are eager for help. Who knows, maybe someday I'll settle on one and become a regular?
Given how often I swing by the Bernal-Gulnac-Joice Ranch on my bike, it seemed most fitting to join the Friends of Santa Teresa Park for one of their monthly “beautification” days. We started with a short walk to the Santa Teresa Spring, which I'd never explored.
Before we got started, I recognized an old cycling friend I hadn't seen in years. We were both surprised (and delighted)—but she was there to hike, not work.
We were given a choice of attacking invasive star thistle (prickly) or blackberry vines (thorny); I opted for the latter. We were only expected to cut the vines down to their roots; they were too well-established and entangled in the ceanothus bushes to consider digging them out. Which means this problem will persist, indefinitely. A drainage channel ran alongside the fence where we worked, and one hardy vine had established itself below a grate. I was frustrated that I couldn't pry the (hinged) grate loose and had to settle only for what I could lop off at the surface.
Our hosts made sure we stayed hydrated, and generously shared some apricots fresh off their tree. After wrapping up, I finally toured the historic ranch house and wondered (as always) at how simply people lived. A room for sleeping, a room for cooking, and a parlor.
I regret not taking some before-and-after shots to showcase our work, but rest assured that our hosts were impressed at how much we accomplished. The blackberry crew eradicated every vine in sight and raked all the cuttings into a few piles for county parks staff to collect.
Take a look around and pitch in sometime. If you appreciate open space, know that there is so much more work to be done than the local staff can complete.
On the lookout for another volunteer gig suitable for sharing with my former teammates, I discovered that the Don Edwards San Francisco Bay National Wildlife Refuge was hosting a “weeding party” on a weekday evening at their Alviso location. Not far from the office, that seemed ideal! The idea was to support local pollinators by removing invasive plants from their butterfly native garden.
Their plans had shifted, but one former colleague and a friend were able to join me. Our assignment was to uproot and remove wild mustard plants, which were in abundance. These invasive plants spread a prodigious amount of seed and develop thick taproots, difficult to pry out of the rock-hard soil even with proper tools. I went hunting for the smaller plants that others overlooked, especially in the cool shade under the trees. I spotted a couple of invasive thistle plants lurking in a tangle of plants next to the pavilion and yanked them out, too.
Postscript: We later learned that we removed more than 75 pounds of invasive plants (mostly mustard). Now I can't stop seeing this scourge wherever I ramble around the Bay Area. I find myself tugging them out, or at least breaking off the stems before the flowers set seed. We won't win this battle, but we should carry on the fight.
Of the two gardening opportunities I found, my colleagues favored San Jose's Japanese Friendship Garden. It was a perfect project, though with little lead time for recruiting: it was part of an upcoming California Community Climate Action Day.
We discovered that peacocks can fly pretty high (if they must).
All in return for a few sweaty hours shoveling and spreading mulch, digging, planting, and picking up litter. [Balloon shards, bottle caps, cigarette butts, and at least one discarded face mask.] Thankfully, mostly in the shade (on a hot day).
Not an early riser, by nature, my choice for volunteering at a rest stop today was determined by how early I didn't have to be there. 8:00 a.m, I could manage.
It was a team effort: Unload the truck, puzzle out how to set up the canopies and screen enclosure for the food-prep area, set up the tables and bike racks.
Fortunately, some of our crew had done this before, expertly keeping the iced water and Gatorade flowing. Without a water source onsite, we had trucked in gallon jugs of bottled water. [So. Much. Plastic. Sigh.] Maybe we should prefer rest stops where we can use a local source for water?
We didn't seem to have any particular job assignments, so I roved. When the guy staffing the hydration station stepped away, I stepped up. Three women had the food prep well in hand, so I ferried trays to and fro, letting them know when we were running low on grapes or wraps or whatever. I restocked and tidied the assortment of packaged snacks.
Our riders were stoked. It was a perfect blue-sky day (albeit a little windy). Their smiles and words of praise were energizing. I had a chance to catch up with some friends who were riding—some of whom I hadn't seen in years.
As the day wore on, the riders were also worn—they were the ones following the longer routes. [I've been there.] By mid-afternoon, I was feeling pretty worn, myself.
We tore everything down and loaded it back onto the truck. That would have been easier had we remembered to use the truck's lift gate ... [duh].
Most of our crew was done, at that point. Except for two of us. The truck needed to travel on, rendezvousing at the finish area where it would be unloaded again. There, everything would be sorted for cleaning, return to storage, or rental return ... and loaded onto different trucks, accordingly.
Another friend spotted me at the finish area; most people had cleared out, but the last riders were still straggling in. [I've been there.]
More than twelve hours after I'd left home, I returned.
Months of planning, and years of experience, paid off: We ran a successful event and gave over 1,000 of our cycling comrades a fun (and safe) day.
Kudos to the army of volunteers who made it possible: designing routes, securing permits, purchasing supplies, coordinating logistics, laying down route arrows, managing parking, running rest stops, offering mechanical support, driving SAG vehicles, providing radio communications, and staffing tricky spots along the course to keep riders safe!
When I ride in one of these events, I often try to learn more about the volunteers. Some are run by bicycle clubs, like ours; others are community events, put on by local boosters. Either way, these events take a lot of coordination and the labor of an army of volunteers.
Some of us signed up to fill multiple roles (three, in my case) ... and yet we were still unable to fill some positions.
My first gig was a mailing party: To streamline the sign-in process, we mail wristbands and route sheets to all participants in advance. That reduces the number of volunteers that would be needed to validate registration and hand out the materials on event day, and makes it easier for the riders to get rolling once they arrive. I had been surprised to see several packets heading out of state!
The logistics are impressive. The morning crew transported all the supplies and equipment to a central location, then arranged what was needed for each individual rest stop. [Lots of checklists are involved. And they're checked once ... twice ... thrice ... ] Not to mention the months of planning that got us to this point.
Our job today was “easy”—all we had to do was load everything onto the truck that will transport it to our rest stop tomorrow morning. Preferably with some semblance of order so we can unload and set it up efficiently.
New to this undertaking, I was here to contribute brawn, not brains. [For some weak definition of brawn.] Along the way I picked up a new skill: how to climb up and into the back of a truck.
Tomorrow's gonna be a loooong day.
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