Oregon, California, Utah, Mexico. Stay tuned!

July 13, 2006
Seattle, Washington, and Vancouver, British Columbia

In Seattle, the rain lets up while I submit to a phone interview for a job promoting energy conservation. Busing to Canada, I meet an activist who didn't find environmentalism in her job but brought it to work and well beyond. But in Vancouver it can be hard to tell the green-makers from the green-washers.

From what I'd heard, I expected Seattle to be gray and rainy, and the city delivered. I walked from the Greyhound station to the Pike Place Market, where a newsstand sold newspapers in Italian (Corriere dello Sport), Croatian (Jutarnji List), Russian, and Arabic, among other languages. After a swift stroll along the waterfront, I caught a ferry to Bainbridge Island.

July 11, 2006
Livingston, Montana, and Yellowstone NP

I co-author a poem on the bus, marvel at a National Park, and finally find some work. When bus riders share their sad stories, I'm unable to admit the motivation for my trip, questioning my focus on the environment in the face of human misfortune.

For eighteen hours on the bus from Minneapolis, Minnesota, to Billings, Montana, I sat with Terra. She was returning home to Plains, Montana, after a week with her father in the North Star State. Terra, like many people I've met on this trip, was twenty years old, living in a town she didn't like, full of people she couldn't relate to, and in a relationship that didn't make her happy.

July 7, 2006
The Twin Cities and Cambridge, Minnesota

I return to Minnesota, where I attended college and where many of my friends still live. And I finally succeed in offsetting as much carbon as I've emitted.

I lived in Saint Paul, Minnesota, for five years, and I know it and its twin city, Minneapolis, better than anywhere else in the country. I went to college there, and those were the years, as they say, "when I became myself." Many graduates from Macalester College remain in the Twin Cities or return after brief absences, and most of my friends from those years are still there.

June 30, 2006
Detroit, Michigan, and Chicago, Illinois

I tour an environmentally friendly plant for producing environmentally unfriendly trucks and see Buckminster Fuller's design for a home that would "do more with less." A room full of chemistry students are enthusiastic for my energy-saving advice.

On Detroit's waterfront, I stumbled into a crowd of festive people. What I had heard of Detroit was less than flattering, but this evening there was a real positive energy in the city. It was the week leading up to both the United States' Independence Day and Canada Day, and the crowd has gathered for a joint Canadian-American fireworks display thrown by Detroit and its neighbor across the Detroit River, Windsor, Ontario.

June 26, 2006
Nashville, Tennessee, and Madison and Custer, Wisconsin

The Nashville hostellers put me off, but generous Madisonians exemplify the kindness of (drunken) strangers. A motley crowd considers the sun's potential at the Midwest Renewable Energy Fair.

I was supposed to be meeting Laura and her friends, whom I had met in Austin, in South Dakota. But my latest email from Laura informed me that their schedule had changed and that they'd be in South Dakota earlier than when I'd be able to meet them.

June 21, 2006
Washington D.C., Georgia, and Florida

Resuming my travels, I find models of sustainability in such diverse places as a national museum and a hostel in the woods. I see friends who are anxious about how to balance their work with their desires to improve the world. And I receive some ideas about how to get this trip back on track.

Buckminster Fuller's spirit persists at the Hostel in the Forest, in Brunswick, Georgia, where the common areas and staff quarters are housed in wood-framed geodesic domes. The guests stay in treehouses. The hostel is hidden in the woods, out of earshot from the highway, and the staff threatens to throw you into the pool if you're caught using your cell phone.

June 14, 2006
Louisville, KY, Schenectady, NY, and Middletown, CT

Out of money and out of luck, I return to my home town to recuperate. As I visit a farm restored to a forest and eat a hearty vegan meal, I consider the carbon impact of our diets.

After another night on the Greyhound, I arrived in Louisville, Kentucky. I caught a city bus across the river to Jeffersonville, Indiana, where I tried again to find work. I should have arrived at the Labor Ready office by 7 a.m. but got lost and didn't arrive until 7:30.

June 9, 2006
Dallas and Austin, Texas, and Little Rock, Arkansas

Texas: Big oil, big natural foods store, big fun. I start to lose sight of my project. Unexpected setbacks have left it in poor shape.

I was well behind on my website, and I spent my first day in Dallas in the Urban Market Cafe, trying to catch up. I also waited to see if Claire would call, but she didn't. I would have felt more comfortable showing up at the hostel if she had called me first. But I was in Dallas, I had left before she had a chance to call me or not call me, and I needed a place to stay for the night.

June 3, 2006
Slidell and New Orleans, Louisiana

I was heading to New Orleans to see the effects of extreme weather, such as that which global climate change might cause. I received a more intimate look when my car broke down in one of the towns Katrina hit hardest.

This had happened to me before, though I had more support at the time. Driving in Florida with my friend Jeannie last summer, my car had died in the middle of the Everglades. Then, as now, I had moved out of where I had been living and had all my worldly possessions in the car. Then, I had the good fortune of staying with some of Jeannie's friends in Miami, who lent us their car and knowledge of the city.

May 31, 2006
Asheville, NC, Chattanooga, TN, and Birmingham, AL

The best way to get a feel for a community is at night. During the day, people are about their business. Night is when they come out and relax and be themselves (except to the extent that they're trying to impress others).

May 26, 2006
Bluefield, West Virginia, and Grundy, Virginia

The local news reported the death of a miner, just days after five were killed in an explosion. The Senate passed a coal mine safety bill. After a commercial by a company advertising itself as the fuel-efficient car company, a segment on a contest among local schools to determine which recycled the most. Then, AAA estimated close to 40 million Americans on the road this weekend for the start of summer. I was one.

May 23, 2006
Staunton, Virginia

Downtown Staunton (pronounced STAN-ton) is a picturesque little city, with hilly streets, cafes, and antique stores, much of which reminds me of Hudson, New York. One of the oldest cities west of the Blue Ridge Mountains and relatively untouched by the Civil War, Staunton retains a wealth of 19th-century architecture. It's also a changing community, with artists and emigrants from northern Virginia (which is practically another state) bringing a different culture and diversity.

May 20, 2006
Williamsburg, Virginia

If success or failure of this planet and of human beings depended on how I am and what I do...How would I be? What would I do?

Buckminster Fuller

Dusk falls on the College of William and Mary, and I take one last walk around campus. I'm leaving a year later than I intended, and yet I am still leaving without a degree. I will likely return in the fall to defend my Master's thesis, but I had hoped to leave now with a sense of accomplishment and completion.