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Highway Cleanup - Sunday, March 19, 2000
Courtesy of: San Diego Off-Road Coalition

By: Jerry Berman

Sunday dawned clear and sunny, a good day to be outside enjoying our beautiful Southern California weather. Linda, Jessica, and I packed the ice chest and cleanup supplies into my truck and headed out. We arrived at the Buckman Springs rest area on Interstate 8, east of San Diego, and decided to scout the area to see what we were in for. When we returned to the staging area, we found several members visiting and yakin' it up. We hung out waiting for others to arrive, specifically the Denners who had been kind enough to pick up supplies from CalTrans.

Jan McGarvie was kind enough to supply us with morning donuts, THANKS JAN!

I gave a short brief and Nancy Denner read a few of the safety rules aloud. We all signed the Release Form and picked out equipment. With the first two teams in my truck, off we went. I dropped them off and returned for the next group. We concentrated the largest number of teams on the north side of the highway. Linda Berman and Jan McGarvie started on the west bound off-ramp and were never able to get out of that area due to the terrible condition it was in. I think they filled 12 bags from that one area. GREAT JOB LADIES!

The best story of the day goes to Roy Denner and Jeff Archer. They were on the eastbound side of the highway and had a real life and death dilemma to deal with while the rest of us mere mortals were busy picking up trash. They came across a poor little fuzzy bunny they thought was taking its final death kicks. They thought it had been hit by a car and dragged itself into the bushes to die. As they tried to decide how to help this poor critter they saw what appeared to be a rope wrapped around it. The "rope" turned out to be a SNAKE! Of course, they thought it was a rattler, but it turned out to be a gopher snake. Now, our two heroes had to make a decision: let nature take its course or save the fuzzy bunny? Well, the decision was to save the fuzzy bunny because they said the mean old snake was just way too small to possibly eat the bunny. They manged to free the bunny from the snake's grasp. It took the fuzzy bunny a little while to recover while our heroes held their breath. It finally recovered and hopped off under the fence and disappeared into the bushes without saying thanks. Just goes to show who the real softies are. We are all proud of you guys!

After the work was done, we all gathered back at the rest area and enjoyed cold cut sandwiches, sodas, potato salad, chips and Linda's 'Killer Brownies'. Special thanks to Conrad Cox for making that extra effort to once again bring the lunch. THANKS CONRAD!

We filled up 53 bags, picked up two old tires, an easy chair and several other assorted pieces of junk. Roy Denner found a BFG All Terrain on an aluminum wheel, which appeared to be almost new. Someone found an old washing machine tub/fire ring. I drove almost 30 miles checking on our volunteers and keeping them supplied with water, empty bags and picking up all the full bags and stuff.

I would like to give BIG THANKS all of our volunteers:

Linda Berman, Conrad Cox, Anita Karasek, Doug McPheeters, Jesse McPheeters, Travis Harmon, Roy Denner, Nancy Denner, Jeff Archer, Jan McGarvie, Catherine Schuh, Jim Karasek, Christopher Cox and Nikki Karasek.

Contacts:	Related Links:
San Diego Off-Road Coalition P.O. Box 712214, Santee, CA 92072-2214 Phone: (619) 561-3877 Fax: (619) 561-5424 E-mail: jgarv@home.com	San Diego Off-Road Coalition 4x4Wire's Environmental Policy Links from the 4x4Wire Link Index Blue Ribbon Coalition Tread Lightly!