Recreation & Fun

Sunday, August 9th. Although my daughter and I didn't make it home from Candlestick until nearly midnight, I met up with nearly 120 volunteers in McLaren Park at the crack of dawn. The volunteers were part of Volunteers for Outdoor California (VOCal), which organizes volunteer workforces to do trail maintenance, construction projects, and habitat restoration on public land.

Located on the south side of the city, 317-acre McLaren Park is the second largest park in the city, next to Golden Gate Park. McLaren is a beautiful, expansive park with tons of amenities but its potential remains largely untapped. One of my goals is to continue its activation and rejuvenation and have it become a destination park.

The three-day event -- which featured legal and permitted overnight camping in the park --
resulted in nearly a mile worth of trail renovations through out this beautiful park. I cannot tell you how impressed I was by this incredible effort. A special thanks is owed to RPD Natural Areas Manager, Lisa Wayne and her talented staff and Cathy Moyer, Executive Director of VOCal, and Dan Schneider of the San Francisco Urban Riders, who were instrumental in contributing volunteers for the event.

After McLaren Park, it was back over to the west side as Golden Gate Park hosted its first Sunday Streets. Sunday Streets is a City effort to create safe, car-free places for people to get active and enjoy activities like dancing, biking, skating, walking, hula-hooping, yoga or just people watching.

I spent my morning with my family on JFK Drive. We rented a surrey at Stow Lake and then pedaled to the roller skating area near 6th Avenue and Fulton. There, the godfather of skate, David Miles, gave my 5-year-old daughter, Sarah, her first roller blade lesson. Unlike her father's efforts on wheels last week, Sarah did not end up at the hospital and, in fact, David described her as a natural.

After skating we hopped back on surrey for another ride and actually bumped into our Mayor who was enjoying a Sunday run by himself all along the Sunday Streets GGP route.

The Mayor was smiling....and so was I.