Road Trip

We don't have much time...

Recently I took a road trip from Albuquerque to Palm Springs.  I didn’t have to drive, so I sat in the back seat and took in all the sights as we passed by.  Beautiful!  Forests, mountains, rock formations.  If you haven’t ever make that trip overland, I recommend it.  What an inspiring country side to observe. 

While ogling these wonderful sights, I also noted that there were lots and lots of semi tractor trailers hauling down the road at breakneck speed.  Like lots of them!  Sometimes two abreast charging down the road both east and west on  Interstates I-40 and I-10.  After a while I began to count them.  Ten plus semi trucks for every 4 to 5 cars.  I’d heard on TV that there was a bottle neck of ships off the California coast waiting to dock and unload their trailers full of merchandise.  The bottle neck was thought to be caused by lack of semi trucks and drivers to haul them inland.  Really? It looked to me like there were plenty of trailer trucks burning thousands of gallons of fossil fuel in an effort to get goods to the interior and return goods and empty trailers to the coastal wharves. 

I was surprised to observe many trucks carrying new automobiles west, probably from Detroit? There were none traveling east.   It was equally interesting to note that  not many trailer trucks carried labels for Wal Mart and Amazon traveling either direction. Hmm.  Do those two merchants use mostly unlabeled trucks to move their products, or is it mostly their stuff that is stuck on the ships waiting to be unloaded? Truck stops where we gassed up were full to overflowing with truckers grabbing a bite to eat or catch a nap.  I was too shy to ask them what they carried in their loads. 

In northern Arizona and New Mexico there were trains lumbering down their tracks.  Long trains.  Over a mile in length!  With three or four engines on the front they pulled more than 200 flat bed cars that carried 4 trailers stacked two deep on each car.  They weren’t moving very fast, but they were moving east toward the interior.  That’s a minimum of 800 truck trailers carrying hundreds of  tons of merchandise and equipment inland.  I don’t know the size of the train crew, but I’m sure it wasn’t the 800 drivers it would take to haul each one of those trailers down the interstate!  I also don’t know how much carbon based fuel it took for three engines to pull those loads, but I’d be willing to bet my hybrid car that they put way less carbon in the atmosphere than all those trucks did! 

I had a fine time in Palm Springs, but am haunted by my country’s failure to address the many environmental threats to our lives and to our enchanting environments.  Wake up America!! Wake up politicians! There’s not much time left to restore the planet!

Elaine Parmenter     

About the author: Elaine Parmenter notes that she is a mother, a Grandmother, and a Great-grandmother who retired from work as a psychologist and an international educator.  She also worked on and off for the US Peace Corps in Puerto Rico, Ecuador, Afghanistan, Nepal, Philippines, Morocco, Tunisia, and Barbados. Traveled throughout Asia and South America representing Drake University in Iowa and Oklahoma State University. She has also written articles for professional journals regarding issues and experiences she encountered.   

Her opinions are her own.