Earth Day 2006

I returned last night from driving our twelve-year-old Mazda pickup two thousand miles across this amazing country. It was the first stage of our move - the truck was loaded to the gills with stuff. It never has too much power, being a little four cylinder vehicle, but loaded as it was, the climb over first the Appalachians, then the Ozarks, and finally the Sandías, was tortuous for both truck and driver. Tortuous and wonderful, at the same time. What a country this is - even from the Interstates it is possible to witness to its vast beauty and richness. From the lush spring blossoming of dogwood and redbud in the Shenandoah Valley of Virginia to the dry rugged red rocks of New Mexico, through the burnt stretches of Oklahoma and Texas where the brushfires recently raged - what a long strange trip it's been. I left the truck in the garage of our new home in Albuquerque and flew back over all those miles on Southwest Airlines in a mere three and a half hours.

Dave has done a fine entry on Peak Oil, and I notice he has another one in the pipeline (pun more or less intended). Maybe soon we'll have to make a trip like the one I just did the old-fashioned way: covered wagon. And maybe then, when we can no longer fling ourselves across the mountains, prairies, valleys and plains in a matter of hours, or even in the relative comfort of the cabs of our pickups, when we see the reality of this land close-up and personal, perhaps then these words of Lady Bird Johnson will have new meaning, and we will finally act upon their truth:

The environment is where we all meet, where we all have a mutual interest; it is the one thing that all of us share. It is not only a mirror of ourselves, but a focusing lens on what we can become... Lady Bird Johnson 1967

| +Save/Share | |