Day 16: Patagonia in Ventura, Ca.

On every great journey, time must be set aside to give thanks, and for the Extinction Stops Here roadshow, that day was today. We have been blessed with many great supporters on this trip, and we will try and thank them all eventually, but today was Patagonia's day.

Patagonia is headquartered in a funky little surf town about an hour north of Los Angeles and we pulled in with Fin around lunch time.

Both the flagship retail store and the corporate headquarters are located on an unassuming street just of off Main St., and we were welcomed into their midst like conquering heroes. Patagonia is one of those organizations that you are glad to know exists. Sure they want to make money, but not only do they make a more than solid product, their entire organization also has that special quality of going above and beyond that makes us proud to be associated so closely with them.

When we parked in front we were immediately greeted by that stores Environmental Grants manager (shouldn't every store have one of those?), and were asked to join the staff in their all- organic cafeteria for lunch. Having eaten many of my last 30 or so meals out of a can, I was all to happy to accept and leave Fin to fend for herself for an hour.

After a great salad and bowl of hearty homemade chili, we got back down to business. Over the course of the next 5 hours most of the 350 onsite employees made their way down to check out Fin, learn about our campaign, sign our petition and hear our words of thanks for their support.

Image courtesy of Brett Millar/Brooks Institute of Photography ©2007

Patagonia Founder adds his name to our petition

The founder of Patagonia, Yvon Chouinard, came down to meet, greet and sign, as did all the children in the employee childcare program. We were able to get an especially adorable picture of the kids holding our banner, which is at the top of this post. Hopefully, with the support of great companies like Patagonia, these kids will live up to the words of that sign, and extinction will stop here, with them.

For now, for us, its onward and upward on this fight to save wild salmon. Today, upward literally means temporarily heading back up north to Santa Barbara for some community outreach at the central Paseo Nuevo Mall, and then back down to Carpinteria in the evening for a seaside farmers market.

Tune in tomorrow, same Salmon time, same Salmon channel.

- Jeremy