5th Annual El Mirage Days Clean Up & Poker Run
May 1-2, 2004
The morning of the cleanup started
with an absolute beautiful day. At
7a.m. Volunteers showed up at the
Station in El Mirage to do a days work. We served them breakfast, did the
clean-up area assignments, and a group of 140 strong left to do their jobs
ranging from trash clean up, Lake bed clean up, Repairing posts and tires on
perimeter of the dry lake bed, to restoration projects consisting of working to
put fences around the Joshua Trees. Pictures
of this year’s cleanup were taken by Linda Waldheim.
Rose
Foster worked sign up, Gina Robinson was responsible for the job assignments and
Vickie worked the restoration project.
Steve did all the cooking for the volunteers, and
(name of lady) did fantastic job in soliciting prices for the raffle.
Six-year-old Brook assisted Ed Waldheim, Friends of El Mirage President,
by pulling the winning number of which we had 68 prizes.
Election
of officers was held on Sunday, and all existing officers were reelected.
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By
Paul Kober
For the past three years the
Friends of El Mirage have held their annual Poker Run on the Sunday morning
following the El Mirage Clean-up and Work Day. This year was our most
successful.
The day started at 7 am with a free
pancake and egg breakfast provided by Linda and Ed Waldheim. Registration
started early with the help of Jim Wilson, Richard Stowe and Paul Kober.
Many of the 170 riders were ready to go before the 8 am start time. Most
riders wanting to beat the 100-degree weather like the day before. The
trail was marked with orange ribbon on Saturday thanks to Terry Brock, Juan and
John Gonzalez. So the trail was not only marked with it's permanent trail
signs but also the orange ribbon made it very easy to follow. These guys,
also, handled all the checks on Sunday.
Several riders were back before the
10 am cut-off time to take the 15-mile loop again. This was the first year
we were able to work the East Loop Trail with a trail rake pulled by a quad.
Many riders who had ridden this trail before made the comment that the rake work
on the trail resulted in a great improvement.
The awards started at noon with the
winners being as follows: First Place, Stephanie McAlister.
Second Place, Mike LeFebvre. Third Place, James Gitney. All winners
received an O'Neal gift certificate, an O'Neal product, a trophy and a Friends
of El Mirage T-shirt. Congratulations to the winners and thanks to
everyone who joined us. A special thanks goes to all of those who worked
so hard to make it happen.
Thanks for joining us this year and we hope to see you again next year. Our 6th Annual El Mirage Days & Poker Run will be held on May 7-8, 2005. Make your plans to join us there!
