We thought we left grass-stained knees behind in elementary school here in the San Francisco office.  But, we rediscovered this youthful indiscretion along with sore hamstrings, finger blisters (turns out typing isn’t very good conditioning), and some serious cases of windblown hair on Saturday morning.

About 30 employees, friends, and family joined in the San Francisco National Public Lands Day effort, which was co-sponsored by Travelocity and served as the kickoff event for Travelocity’s cause program, Travel for Good.

After a morning rally that included speakers, breakfast, and giveaways (the Travelocity booth handed out free water bottles and lip balm to help volunteers survive the elements), volunteers were shuttled to sites all over the Golden Gate National Recreation Area.  Volunteers embarked on trail maintenance in Muir Woods, removing barbed wire at Alcatraz, sweeping the beaches for debris, and, in our group’s case, ridding Crissy Field, the beautiful stretch of parkland in San Francisco’s Marina neighborhood, of those pesky yellow flower-weeds we’ve all had a love (at age 6) and hate (at whatever age it is that one becomes a proud lawn owner) relationship with: dandelions. We only wish that we had before and after pictures, because certainly there are some skeptical readers at this point who are rolling their eyes at this seemingly cush assignment.  In fact, besides the aforementioned blisters, stains, and strains, our group leader Lynn told us that our hard work was the equivalent of what would otherwise have been over 150 hours, or three weeks, of paid work by a park service employee which could now be used for another worthy endeavor.
The day wasn’t without a requisite Gnome shenanigan. While our beloved Roaming Gnome was named contraband from the event site by an overzealous National Parks rules committee, he managed to weasel his way into our booth for a couple of quick photo ops (he’s a sneaky little fellow that way). Then we were tipped off that some Park Rangers were planning a Gnome-napping, so the Gnome quickly went back into hiding in an empty water bottle box.  Mind you he was pretty grumpy about not being able to at least make a dandelion necklace or two, but he’ll get over it.