The Bay Area is suffering from smoke inhalation. Since Clara and I have spent a large part of this Bikes to Rwanda road trip along the coast of Northern California, we only really started seeing the terrible smoke from the California fires recently. On our way up here to Temple Coffee in Sacramento, it was really bad. But Cali folk are being great about being careful not to make the problem worse. Everyone’s taking it really seriously.
Onward: so I last left you at Ritual in San Francisco, where we were setting up for what turned out to be a terrific event, organized by Drew Cattlin: Ping Pong to Rwanda. And guess what? WE RAISED MORE THAN $1300!!! It was awesome. Here are some scenes for the event:
Drew organized a bracket, so ping pongers played down to a semi final round and a final round. TONS of people showed up for the love of ping pong and BTR.
Here, that’s my dad! Here is my dad standing by the BTR table Clara set up in Ritual.
From left t right: Verve, Ritual (Chris Owens’ back), and Ecco. I mean Ritual! That’s right — Steve Ford is moving from Ecco to Ritual. And Drew is moving from Ritual to Ecco! My, what a big family we have in the coffee world!
M’lissa matches the promotiona postcard for the ping pong event.
From left to right: Eileen, Ryan, Chris, and Lawyer Dave. Thanks for the big contribution to BTR, Lawyer Dave!
So then it was off to Berkeley for me to spend a night at my parents’ house. I left just a tad to early to see Drew win the tournament. Great job, Drew!
This morning, Clara came over to Berkeley from San Francisco to have brunch with me and my parents, and then we bid them farewell and headed for Walnut Creek and Pacific Bay Coffee!
It’s a beautiful cafe space and I had been dying to see it for so long that this was a real treat. John and Kerry showed us around and set us up with some yummy Americanos made by Sarah.
Clara and I were admiring the beautiful jewelry on sale at Pacific Bay, and Kerry surprised us by letting us each pick one out to have as a gift!! Thanks, Kerry! Here we are modeling our necklaces with Jessie, who does the merchandising at Pacific Bay.
Pacific Bay has supported Bikes to Rwanda in ll kinds of ways, and for that we want to give them a big huge thank you!
And here we are with John and Kerry and the wooden bike! Thanks so much for all the hospitality and kindness, John and Kerry!
So now we’re in Sacramento for Temple Coffee and Barefoot Coffee’s awesome fundraising event called Ride On! It’s a bike race and poker match. More news to come!
Yay, Temple!
