I realized recently that I basically never talk about work on this blog, which I guess I started as an intentional strategy way back in the day since I was just going to talk about biking things. But I have a sweet job working for a trails nonprofit in Washington that frequently involves being out on hiking trails. Sometimes that’s by myself to plan for trail work, or sometimes with agency partners to look at trails, or sometimes with groups of volunteers to carry out trail work.
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(someone’s gotta maintain the trails with excellent views like this!;)
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To get to those trails, I have a work truck. Well, the three of us in my office have two work trucks that we share, but since the Pandemic one of them lives mostly at my house — sometimes at my boss’s house — and the other lives at our other coworker’s house. I take the work truck when I need to get to various far-flung trails. And thus since the only time I ever drive is when I’m getting paid to do so, James and I always joke that I am a professional driver.
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(I did take this picture from work, but actually the first time I was ever here I biked here:)
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I definitely do have mixed feelings about driving single-occupancy to trailheads all around Southwest Washington, and I remember when I started this job (almost 6 years ago now?!) I wasn’t sure if I could reconcile that. I’m not sure if it means that I’ve compromised my values that I basically don’t worry about it that much anymore, although I think that my workplace is lucky that I hate driving because I am therefore a very efficient trip-taker. I combine trips into efficient systems rather than just driving somewhere “because I can”; I take as few trips as possible — and thus save us all gas money, time, wear and tear on the truck, and environmental niceness as much as I can.
But isn’t it funny, I think to myself, that little car-free me is also a professional driver?
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(another work day:)
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I do like though that many of the places I drive to for work I actually have biked to. It’s just that it might take many hours, or all day, or sometimes even more than one day, and is not efficient for a capitalist system in which we’re told we have to do things quickly and productively. (Ha, also, I may be strong but I definitely couldn’t haul all the trail tools and equipment I need for work parties of like 12 people into the mountains on my bicycle).
But I always wish that there were a stronger system of transit, maybe not to every trailhead in the world but certainly the ones that are right near major roadways. I wish, when I posted trail work opportunities for folks, that I could say “accessible by bus” (even for the work we do in the city of Vancouver proper, I have a hard time saying this). I dream of a world in which people come out to maintain and enjoy trails with less of a carbon footprint. I guess, deep down, I dream of a world in which we don’t take for granted the ability to just hop in a car and fill it with old dinosaurs and get to whatever far-flung place we want on whatever time frame we want, that maybe we downsize (right-size?) our conception of travel and how far it’s reasonable to travel at once.
And for my off time, I will always find more joy in getting there on my bicycle:)