Talking about my real job here for a moment, not the bike shop. We used to do this thing called Ski Day. Kinda like a company picnic, and it sorta involved skiing. In recent years it had become fairly fractured due to not everyone being interested in skiing. This year we decided to change things up, and instead of a day-long party we decided to do a service day and give back to the community.

Our company headed out to the champlain islands for a day of work at Camp Ta-Kum-Ta, a summer camp for kids who have or have had cancer. They’re just moving into a brand new camp facility, and there’s a lot to do before they can bring the kids there this summer. We worked hard all day building flower gardens and working on the grounds. By the end of the day I was utterly spent, my boss chided me for being tired. But I reminded him that I haven’t been training for mulching or doing digging intervals and I didn’t think that my bike riding was translating very well into yard work.

view from the lodge

view from the lodge

Very thankful that the camp let us come in and work and do just a little bit for those kids. Having friends with a very sick little girl, I think I can understand just a little bit I have seen how important it is for these kids to have the opportunity to be a kid and to do normal kid things.The camp has a gorgeous view of Lake Champlain. For anyone that has the ability or opportunity to organize volunteers, I’d like to recommend that you contact Camp Ta-Kum-Ta for a service project. They have a lot of work being done this spring and summer and there’s a lot of room for volunteer labor.

Of course spending the day digging in the dirt meant that i didn’t ride my bike, again. But that’s okay, it was well worth it.