Two Green Girls on the Road

The Long Haul Back to Atlanta

Use the handy map here to follow Mary Logan's path and view her favorite snapshots.

In my mind, a green trip is one in which you keep your impact as low as possible, support local economies and businesses, enjoy natural wonders, and learn about the people and the culture of your destination. On our cross-country road trip, Trish and I learned the most by taking a green pulse of the country from our meetings with green companies, city representatives, local businesses, gardens and more. We didn't have a hybrid--we drove a gas-guzzling Volvo--so we took other measures to stay green, like avoiding hotels and non-local food and keeping our budget under $25 a day. See more in our list below of things we'll take away from our trip, which includes our triumphant successes and our dismal mistakes.

1. The Volvo doesn't hypermile; rather it seems to hypomile with these techniques. Cruise control at 55 mph on properly inflated tires is the best way to get the most out of a conventional car, but we couldn't stand Mack trucks whizzing by us in the left lane, so we set it at 75 and vowed to find a way to take a hybrid next time.
2. Support Plug-in Partners--a national hybrid plug-in program sparked by initiatives in Austin, Texas, that we learned about from a city rep--and think about how green we'd be if we could get them to sponsor us for a trip next year.
3. Once you arrive in a destination, ditch the car. Take a bike, a walk or ride the bus--but try not to sit on it all afternoon to get to Santa Monica Beach like we did.
4. Offset. We went to Climate Trust and used their Carbon Counter to offset the two tons of carbon we just sent into the atmosphere. Trust me, the $24.32 was worth reducing our impact on the earth and our feelings of guilt.
5. Aside from a little gas-wasting and smog-producing, we were pretty earnest about staying green. We used reusable water bottles, coffee mugs and dinnerware. Bandannas served as napkins and cereal boxes as cutting boards. We also reused every single piece of clothing--sometimes twice.
6. Biofuels are taking over the world (we hope), from Willie Nelson's Texas to hip L.A. So is wind energy--check out those roadside turbines!
7. Our meals were not luxurious but were less wasteful than eating out. It's not just about the budget; it's about food and waste--fast food is convenient but neither delicious nor green. We didn't eat a single fast meal (unless you count that Dairy Queen Blizzard we had for dinner--twice), but tried to eat locally everywhere we went. In nearly every city, we picked up fresh, local fruits and vegetables, and along the way we made several stops at natural food markets for bread and crackers. Car-eating kept our drives efficient, if our shirt-fronts dirty.
8. When they build an Earthship home that looks a little more like a house and less like a dinosaur, I will buy one. It is OK if it is in Taos, New Mexico.
9. Though we proudly avoided takeout and bottled drinks, we might have had a Coca-Cola or two. Wal-Marts make for good disposal and recycling sites, as do San Franciscos and Berkeleys. Know where you can compost ahead of time--say, a friend's house or a community garden--before accumulating too many banana peels.
10. Staying under $25 a day for lodging, food and entertainment is a piece of cake, if you don't want to see a concert, shop for vintage clothes, ride horses all day, or have a birthday.
11. Do not get takeout from the Acapulco Mexican restaurant in Kerrville, Texas, unless you want enough polystyrene to pack a TV with. Do get their tacos.
12. The "Googley" mindset at Google emphasizes free thinking and creativity, and they devised wise green programs like the shuttle system from San Francisco to the headquarters in Mountain View, California. Patagonia's laidback, organically green corporate policies in Ventura had us so tickled we thought suggesting a no-shoes-needed policy at our places of business might put us on that same organic level.
13. Children in the San Francisco Bay area could likely out-know us in a food-source quiz, thanks to initiatives like Alice Waters's creation of the Edible Schoolyard in Berkeley and Mission Pie in San Francisco.
14. Stop and ask: What do you locals do around here? They always have good ideas--sometimes involving swimming holes or pizza shops with locally sourced ingredients--and they usually support local businesses or natural wonders only found there. Make many friends so you can crash with them on your next trip.
15. Colorado's water supply is threatened; therefore, drink local beer when possible.

Miles traveled: 6,062.4. Good gracious! About two-thirds the mileage Trish has driven in her car in two years.
Money spent on gas: About $1,000. Less than my monthly rent but more than booking a flight to Hawaii next week.
Cheapest gas: $3.45, Kentucky
Most ridiculously unaffordable gas: $4.59, California
Greenest moment: Stretching out in the Berkeley sun munching on green beans just plucked from the Edible Schoolyard
Least green moment: Every second spent in the Volvo, except when coasting downhill
Mood: We're preparing to pitch to the editors: the Pacific Northwest in a plug-in hybrid

© The Green Guide, 2008

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Day 19, Denver and Boulder

Use the handy map here to follow Mary Logan's path and view her favorite snapshots.

Now, the Green Guide makes a point not to get tangled up in politics. But since Trish and I had a personal reason to meet with a former U.S. Congressman in Denver with a long history of experience with environmental issues, we decided to get his perspective on things.

Scott McInnis, having served six terms in the House, has created national parks, authored pieces of legislation called things like the Healthy Forest Act, and was named the Legislator of the Year by the Colorado Wildlife Federation. And he has a conservation area in western Colorado named after him: McInnis Canyons National Conservation Area (We drove by it coming from Moab).

But Mr. McInnis doesn't share the view of wilderness that we hear environmentalists championing. His beef is that he doesn't want all federal lands to be preserved as virgin places. He pushes multiple use of federal lands: for water, natural gas, recreation, whatever. And he chalks it up to a fundamental, historical difference between the East and the Rocky Mountain West, which for two girls on the road trying to appreciate the natural beauty unlike what we have back home, made for some good road trip fodder.  

He told us a great, brief history of Colorado and the West, citing the lifeblood as the Colorado River. We felt ourselves sympathizing with his point when he showed us a map of the U.S. with the areas of federal lands mapped out. The East has very few such areas, and the West was all covered in yellow and green ink. We assumed it's because the West, is you know, amazingly naturally beautiful and the East is, well, only so-so (sorry, native land). But Mr. McInnis said historically federal land wasn't put in the hands of the government to be preserved for its beauty, but rather because no one wanted to move to the craggy, farming-unfriendly lands of the Rocky Mountains when the U.S. first acquired the territory. It was a way to give people use of the land--without having to give everyone thousands of acres as incentive--to get some suckers to move out there.

Mr. McInnis said that the West's federal lands makes it tricky for people out there to… live--to get water and gas and power--so he staunchly supports multiple use. We even found that the conservation area in western Colorado was named after him because he created it to prevent the land becoming a National Monument--the most highly restricted type of federal area--and to preserve it for multiple use.  

It's not going to get us to change our votes this November (Patagonia already told us to "Vote the Environment" and we eagerly promised), but it was a new perspective we haven't come across before on this trip. Plus, we had to be somewhat impressed because he gave us some road trip tips and told us everything we'd ever wanted to know about Colorado.

After our meeting, we drove with our Denver hostess up to the college town of Boulder. It was pouring down rain, but we bought two-dollar PVC-full ponchos from the Army Store and toughed it out for some window shopping, which turned into actual shopping at a vintage store called Goldmine Vintage. Downtown Boulder was bustling despite the rain, and we liked hearing that 85 percent of downtown's 350 shops and restaurants are locally owned and operated. Later, we decided there was no better place to hunker down and get dry than a couple of local Colorado breweries: Walnut Brewery and Mountain Sun Pub and Brewery. The rain did however, deter us from our plan of a hike and a campout, so we headed back to Denver for our last night before the long trek to Atlanta.

Money spent: $133--Argh, Goldmine Vintage…
Money spent on gas: None--our kind hostess toted us around--and we're getting bikes for tomorrow
Highlight: Downtown Boulder and people's general disregard for the rain
Lowlight: PVC ponchos
Mood: Dreading the drive back

© The Green Guide, 2008

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Day 18, Arches National Park to Denver

Use the handy map here to follow Mary Logan's path and view her favorite snapshots.

Yesterday Trish and I were Thelma and Louise. We didn't shoot anybody, and we didn't nosedive the Volvo into the Grand Canyon. But we did visit two towns where the movie was filmed.

It does not rain much in Moab, Utah--usually less than an inch in all of August. But it rained all night while we were there, watering the poor, dry cottonwoods at our creekside campsite and really mucking up our plans for sunrise photos of glowing red and purple rocks. We did the speed tour through Arches National Park in the morning, which means that we ran up the half-mile trail to relax and enjoy the silence for two minutes and then snap photos of us holding the Delicate Arch on top of our heads.

After our first Thelma and Louise town, we took the scenic highway along the Colorado River to Cisco, Utah, a real ghost town. Apparently, Cisco was once the largest producer of oil and natural gas in the state, and new oilrigs were put in as late as 2005. With crumbling old buildings, no modern structures (except the rigs), businesses all boarded up, and some suspiciously recent models of Ford trucks hanging around, we decided this was one place where we were glad we were in a hurry. It did make me think though: What a shame to have a whole town with an existing infrastructure--though crumbly--right near the glorious red rocks of Arches and the Colorado River that's not being used, except by ghosts and possibly some criminals on the run. That's why I've decided to rehabilitate Cisco and name Trish the mayor.

As we headed into the Denver area after a long drive of singing harmonies in gibberish (there's only so much on the iPod), we stopped at the National Geographic Maps Division in Evergreen for a visit with Michelle Wilkinson. These guys are the ones who set us up with the cool GeoStory Player that allows you to view the photos and map of this trip. There, we watched cartographers work on new maps, saw the sheer amount of maps NG produces, learned about the eco-friendly packaging of the new TOPO! Explorer software, and were treated to two trail maps of the Denver area, which we plan to promptly put to use.

We also deliberately blew the budget a second time, and we are blaming it on my birthday. James Taylor was playing at Red Rocks Amphitheatre, arguably the best music venue in the world, and we were driving right by it. So somehow we ended up with our Denver host (a friend I met last year in France) sitting in the rain, under our tent ground tarp, in the red-rocked natural amphitheater with acoustics and an environment better than any manmade architecture.

Money spent: Less than $15, were it not for the $150 we spent on three James Taylor tickets (Mom's birthday treat)
Gas price: Less than $4.00 all over Colorado!
Highlight: The out-of-our-budget music experience in a natural setting, of course
Lowlight: Since when does it rain in the desert?
Mood: Chipper

© The Green Guide, 2008

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