There were 15 campers in total: seven from Dallas and eight from Houston. The Houston caravan departed for Chisos Basin Campground mid-day on Thursday, splitting the drive over two days. The Dallas crew opted for a straight shot to the park on Friday morning. 

The drive west through Texas wasn’t glamorous. No podcast was entertaining enough to save us from the flat fields of cattle and pumpjacks; however, things started to pick up once we reached Marathon, TX, about an hour north of the park. As we drove south towards the park, the flat land became hills and the hills became mountains with jagged points and steep cliffs. 

Our campground was deep in the heart of the landscape, so, once we reached the park, we needed to drive another 40 minutes south. Scaling peaks resembling castle walls towered in the distance. They seemed to grow larger as we drew closer. At last we drove through a crack directly into the cliffs. We slowly wound our way down the cliff edges to the flatter basin between the peaks and found ourselves at the campground. 

Friday night after our camp was set up, we ate dinner, the javelinas stopped squawking, and we kicked back in folding chairs to point out constellations and stargaze. Over the next two days, we broke into smaller groups and asynchronously explored all the best trails, peaks, and activities Big Bend had to offer!

Lost Mine Trail

During the most popular short-day hike at Big Bend, we weaved in and out of the juniper, oak, and pine forest for five miles. We even spotted a pair of deer snacking on a tree just a few feet off the trail. Lost Mine Trail offered vast views of Juniper Canyon. 

We clutched our hats to keep them from blowing away in the wind as we took in the views at the top. The smooth rock ridge offered views of Pine Canyon and Sierra del Carmen in Mexico. 

The Window Trail

The next most popular trail in Big Bend is The Window, which (thankfully) began at the group campground. This trail descends two miles through rolling hills and vertical rock walls to a narrow pour-off, which overlooks the surrounding Chihuahuan Desert. 

This area can be very dangerous during flash floods as large runoffs flow down through the window. Even when it’s not wet, the rocks are extremely slippery due to the runoff. One large group made the trek down on Saturday morning and another went at dusk.

Santa Elena Canyon

We drove through Ross Maxwell Scenic Drive and arrived at a gaping cutout of a towering plateau. After crossing Terlingua Creek, the trail climbed several short switchbacks and then gradually descended along the banks of the Rio Grande. 

On this trail, we were surrounded by lush riparian vegetation and 1,500-foot towering vertical cliffs of solid limestone. The trail ends where canyon walls meet the river, but we waded up the river through water levels that ranges from ankle to waist deep.

After a mile of trudging through the muddy river bottom and strong headwinds, we found a large cave, decided we didn’t want to find out what was living in it, and turned back around. 
     

Emory Peak

This was an over 10-mile roundtrip, and only a handful of us made it up the challenging and technical hike to the highest point in Big Bend (7,832'). Starting before the sunrise and guided only by the light of our headlamps, we didn’t arrive at the peak until the sun was high in the sky. The last 25 feet require a scramble up a sheer rock wall, but the reward is the ultimate panoramic view of the entire landscape.

South Rim

Two groups were brave enough to make it up and out to South Rim. The bravest of them all, four in total, backpacked up to a remote campground for one night to be at the rim for the sun rise. As you can see from Nick practicing his Dragon Ball Z power stances, we made it.

We walked the rim for a couple miles, just feet away from the 2500 foot drop off, taking in the views of the valley below.
 

Hot Springs

This trail offered an opportunity to step back in time and experience Big Bend before it became a national park. A short distance from the trailhead are the historic remains of J.O. Langford's Hot Springs resort: including a picturesque building that was the store and post office as well as a motor court that accommodated overnight guests. 

The actual hot spring was a quarter mile further down the trail, contained within the stone walls of what was Langford’s bath house. Between the motor court and the spring, one can view ancient pictographs that people who live here thousands of years ago drew. The springs were a great place to rest our muscles after all the other grueling hikes.

Learn more about DMC's company culture.
 

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Operation Santa

Each holiday season, post offices receive "hundreds of thousands" of letters from children asking Santa Claus for toys, games, and even basic necessities for themselves and their families. USPS's Operation Santa program lets volunteers stand in for Santa and fulfill these wishes during the holiday season.

How Operation Santa Works

Letters are uploaded to USPS's online Operation Santa database. Participants can create an account to ‘adopt’ one of these letters and send gifts and a letter response from Santa.

After the gifts have been festively wrapped, a QR code label is attached that allows the gift to be sent without revealing the recipients' identifiable information. The gifts can then be dropped off at participating USPS locations for delivery.

Santa's Workshop

This year, 14 DMCers (and six plus ones) signed up to participate. First, A DMC account was created on the Operation Santa website. Then, participants logged in and selected a letter or two to adopt.

DMC supported this effort by using the Activity Fund, a monthly budget dedicated to social activities, to supplement the purchases of everyone who participated. Participants got to work purchasing and wrapping the gifts requested in each adopted letter. Letters and their corresponding gifts were shared in our #operation-santa Slack channel.

Spreading Holiday Cheer

Spending time with teammates while helping others was a great way spread holiday cheer throughout several DMC offices.

According to Paul Mangels of DMC New York, "I like Operation Santa because it’s something we can all do together even though we’re all dotted around the country and mainly working remotely. It’s just nice to feel like we’re helping people out where we can, and it’s nice that USPS lets you adopt letters from your home state." 

This is DMC's second time participating in the Operation Santa program. "I participated in Operation Santa for the first time in 2020 when a colleague organized a group of us at DMC to participate," Paul said. "I thought it was a good activity for us to do around the holidays, so I put it together again this year. I’m just grateful to have a bunch of generous colleagues who all signed up!"

DMC's second annual Operation Santa was a great success. We hope to continue this tradition in the future!

Learn more about DMC's company culture. 

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What is Operation Santa?

According to the US Postal Service "Each year, hundreds of thousands of letters sent to Santa from children and families arrive at Post Offices around the country." These letters include requests ranging from toys and games to basic necessities and help for their loved ones. 

Anyone can write a letter to Santa. They are published by the USPS (without personally identifiable information) for the public to decide which ones they want to adopt. After creating an account, individuals and organizations can adopt these letters and send responses and gifts in Santa’s place.

Santa's Helpers

DMC created an Operation Santa team account and any employee who wanted to participate could join. We adopted several letters—they were going fast—and shared them in a Slack channel. Then, participants volunteered to send a response and gift to each letter. Our team adopted eight letters and sent gifts to fourteen people!

Some letters mentioned multiple family members in need. To maximize our give, a DMC participant volunteered to respond to every family member mentioned in the letter. We used the DMC Activity Fund to purchase gifts that the letter writers had requested from Santa. 

Everyone who participated had a great time reviewing the letters and sharing the gifts we made and purchased. It was a wonderful way to connect with colleagues while giving back to the community. Once the gifts were wrapped, each participant printed a QR code to bring to the post office. This notified the USPS of the recipient's shipping information while keeping it secure. 

Holiday Magic

According to the USPS, there were 23,860 letters adopted this season! 

Christina Keefe of DMC Boston said, "During this unusual holiday season, participating in Operation Santa with DMC gave me a chance to feel connected to a child through the light-hearted experience of picking out gifts for them! It was so meaningful to see the letters to Santa and read what the children were both in need and want of this season. It was a great, easy way to have a direct impact on families around the country."

Will Todd from the Chicago office had a similar experience. "This was my first time participating in Operation Santa. The process was a breeze, and allowed me to re-experience the excitement kids have around the holidays and how we, as a team, truly made a difference for these families."

We look forward to participating in Operation Santa in the future, and we hope that you had a wonderful holiday season!

Learn more about DMC's company culture. 
Banner image credit: USPS

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Virtual Carving Contest

This fall, we didn’t want to miss out on the spooky pumpkin fun! Jason Mayes, director of our Houston office, pitched the idea early in the month that we should have a pumpkin carving contest. With plenty of upvotes supporting this idea, the 2020 Pumpkin Carving Contest had begun.

We clarified that we do not need to "carve" a pumpkin to enter the contest, and the submissions began to roll in. We also hosted a virtual carving party where attendees got together on a Teams meeting to chat while creating their masterpieces.

Gourd-eous Creations

We had some family submissions like the Spider and Spooky pumpkins from Jason Mayes's family in Houston. John Sullivan's kids of DMC Denver made impressive cat and 'Angry' jack o' lantern.

We also had Iron Man and Mr. Potatohead join the party compliments of Leslie's family from Chicago.

In a category I'm naming 'just plain fun," Will Todd of DMC Chicago and Frank May of DMC Boston submitted their pumpkins. Will's pumpkins sport adorable ghosts with hats and art that is up for debate on whether it is the Tampa Bay Lightning logo or Gatorade.

Thank you, Frank May, for your ode to a great movie Napoleon Dynamite.

Next is our Traditional Halloween and 2020 category. All masterpieces in my opinion. Carolyn of DMC Chicago showcased the dumpster fire that is 2020 and a great traditional jack-o'-lantern.

Justine of DMC Chicago showcased her amazing painting skills by giving us Hocus Pocus beauty and 2020 realness. Please note the hand sanitizer, toilet paper and Clorox wipes accompanied by the coronavirus polka dots.

Jumping on the "This is fine" train, Ryan of DMC Chicago and friends. Not sure what the story behind the cow is, but I'm here for it.

Virtual Happy Hour

On October 30, we had a virtual Halloween Happy Hour to discuss the pumpkins and show off some costumes. Instead of picking winners or watching a movie together, we just hung out. There were adorable appearances of costumed pups and DMC kids. We learned about families' trick or treat strategies for this year. Overall, it was a nice time to catch up.

We also sampled all of the Halloween filters that are now offered on Zoom. Hopefully, everyone remembered to turn off their filter before any client meetings on Monday!

Sharing time with the DMC family is always a fun, energetic experience. With our heavy workload and onsite client visits, sometimes joining a Zoom hang out isn’t possible. Having "events" that involve posting and reacting to pictures is one of the ways we keep our company culture active while working from home. It's a fun way to see what's going on in other's lives and show off our colleagues' creative talents!

As for the best pumpkin photo, I'm crowning Rick Rietz of DMC Chicago the winner!

Learn more about DMC's company culture. 

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The preserve was a perfect spot right off of the highway and thankfully near a local store where we were able to grab things like scissors, markers, and extra ice. A great escape from the hustle of city life and the average workday, we were able to enjoy the serene beauty of nature and have a relaxing afternoon at the same time.

Many DMC employees brought their children who enjoyed the bounce house, sand art, and other activities. We also put together a number of games to spark the friendly competition in everyone. For most of the challenges we hosted a Kid Championship Division and an Adult Championship Division to make competition more equally weighted. Some in-between youngsters though, like John Toljanic’s sons, took on the adults and often came close to beating them!

We held a donut eating contest – and no don’t worry, the competition wasn't about how many donuts one person could eat. Instead we tied a donut to a string and made each contestant eat the donut without using her hands. Attendees also participated in a three-legged race, a tug of war competition, multiple volleyball matches, and an egg race. 

Despite threatening weather forecasts and looming clouds, the weather held out all day, and we had only the, slightly more outrageous than normal, Chicago wind to deal with. There were a few fly-away Frisbees and some catapulted corn due to the blustery day, but thankfully that was the worst of our worries.

All in all, the now annual, DMC Picnic was a great success!

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