A Trip West

 On a clear day in late November we hooked the popup to the Chevy and pulled out of the drive to “head down the road a piece,” as dad would say.  We would return some six weeks later, after doubling our expected time away and logging more than 5700 miles.

Such an excursion has a short list of requirements: a functioning vehicle, gasoline, a capable driver, time.  We had a couple destinations and a general route in mind but no real schedule, so where we landed on a given night and precisely how we would get there was up for grabs.  Not so different, I suspect, than the travel planning done by a migrating bird.  

Because we were traveling during an escalating pandemic, we took precautions.  We carried all of our food, wore disposable gloves at gas stations, and avoided public restrooms, the latter resulting in improvisations and discretions that at times impressed us both.  In the end we felt as safe as if we were holed up at home.

We traveled west, through once great plains and prairies, across the Rockies, the salt flats of Utah, the arid landscapes of Nevada, not taking a substantial rest until we reached the Sierras. There we dawdled a few days and took hikes among towering pines and firs and cedars, walked the shores of mountain lakes, logged new bird sightings, watched coyotes walk with attitudes through neighborhoods in the middle of the day.  Later, we moved on and set up at the edge of the continent, on a headland within earshot of crashing surf, where great whales migrate and scoters and marbled godwits gather to feed, and kelp skeletons litter the beaches.

What a trip!  Breathtaking scenery, geologic wonders, wildlife, all combined and threatened to overload our senses.  With it came reflections on land use, engineering marvels, monumental achievements for the sake of travel. Rivers spanned with masterful bridges, mountains moved or tunneled through, prairie potholes drained, all accomplished with energy inherent in ancient fuels, the same fuels that allowed communities to spring up with conveniences near at hand— water from taps, heat from furnaces, food from groceries.  The same fuels that moved the Chevy down the road, quietly and smoothly, generating surplus heat that kept the cab toasty warm; climbing mountain passes, crossing expanses of what were to early settlers endless prairies or vast, parched and inhospitable lands.  Cradled in lush upholstery, we covered distances that required months for our predecessors.   Effortlessly we cruised, propelled by fuels that today threaten our very civilization. 

Pulling the popup, the Chevy averages no better than 14 mpg, so in driving 5700 miles we burn over 400 gallons of gasoline and release more than 8100 pounds of CO2.  For the sake of the planet we could have stayed home, perhaps should have.  But we did not.  We instead had a phenomenal trip, spent quality time with our sons (both live in CA), visited spectacular parks, traveled roadways and saw country new to us.  

This wasn’t our first trip to the west coast, but one the Chevy and popup have made several times.  With each trip there is the promise of new places and adventures, and a refocusing on challenges of the day.  We can pick a topic from the nation’s headlines— the pandemic, racial or economic inequality, political divisiveness, corruption, corporate control— and know that nothing we face is new to history.  But dramatic declines in populations of songbirds and insects, a sudden increase in extinction rates, dying oceans, melting glaciers and permafrost are all relatively new.  We are headed for global temperatures never experienced in human history.  All other headlines should pale in comparison.

I recently read a post from Canadian Marc Doll saying we should savor 2020 as one of the last good years, that the illusion we are somehow disconnected from our environment, that our actions do not have consequences to every living thing, and that all living things are not inexorably connected has come to its logical end.  We can’t consume our way out of this.  A return to normal isn’t an option.

We are back home, having been spared any of hundreds of potential mechanical failures, an accident, or COVID.  The news is spewing many of the same concerns as were being reported before we left, as were being reported a century ago. People are moving to coastal cities and the desert Southwest, not questioning whether these places will continue to be livable.  Weather patterns and events are viewed as the new normal, as if we’ve reached a plateau, a stopping point.  We haven’t. 

We’re home, and the birds have found the feeders. We saw a group of 25 turkeys preparing for roost, watched several bald eagles fly over the north field, and yesterday more than 200 sandhill cranes were singing wildly as they winged and circled and generally made their way southward over the house.  It’s all good, I want to say, and indeed some of it is.  

Someday, I’ll write something without letting the greatest ecological threat to mankind weave its way in.  Maybe I’ll write about a trip we took and stay focused only on the extraordinary, life enriching adventure it was, ignoring any alarming realities on the periphery. Maybe I’ll get home and turn up the thermostat and go online and buy some stuff and just squeal like a jubilant pig.  Maybe. But I doubt it.