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Meet your tour guides:
In order to walk the talk, Billy and Meighan are off to Detroit and their first stop on the tour in a new 2003 Toyota Prius hybrid. Says Billy: “We're going to see if we can make it all the way to Detroit on one tank of gas. WOOHOO! Wish us luck!” |
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Slideshow! Check out some pictures from the tour. |
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Tales from the road! 1 | 2 | 3 | 4 | 5 | 6 | Wrap-Up |
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Sierra Club / Lollapalooza 2003 Main |
Tales from the Road: Day 1
Sweet car, dude.
"ROAD TRIP!!!" At 10:30 a.m., Meighan and I left D.C., after christening our new hybrid (left, yo) with the cheapest bottle of champagne Meighan could find.
After weaving our way through unusually ugly mid-morning D.C. traffic, we finally hit the highway and let our beautiful new Toyota Prius show us what it could do.
The car didn't let us down. While we were stopping almost every hour (for me to grab a snack, or Meighan to catch a smoke break), we didn't find ourselves stopping for gas until we were almost three-quarters of the way through Ohio (488 miles away from DC). All in all, our trip from D.C. to Detroit only cost about $15 in gas, $5 in tolls, and about $15 in food (to celebrate our low-budget journey westward, we splurged on a gourmet dinner at the Dayton waffle house). While averaging a little over 48 mpg for the trip, the car was never lacking for power, and got us shooting down an on-ramp at 70 mph, quick enough to beat the rush of traffic.
Even though we spent most of our trip on a superhighway, we saw some beautiful scenery. Driving through the hills of Pennsylvania, I was amazed at how beautiful the forests are that cover most of this wooded state. In Ohio, we drove by some beautiful family farms and local parks and were amazed at the difference between the pastoral setting of the smaller farms, and the industrial look of the agribusiness operations.
Of course, we saw our share of environmental destruction as well -- gravel and asphalt factories in PA, oil refineries and chemical plants in OH, and then the vast industrial wasteland just south of Detroit. While the pollution and land destruction were hard to witness, they also helped reaffirm why it is so important that we do what we can to demand innovation to help improve our current pollution problems.
We met some colorful people along the way. At a truck stop near Pittsburgh, we got trucker Paul LaMare from Wisconsin to pose with our car. We also met the Provenzano family. The father, Lou, wanted to check out the technology firsthand. We popped the hood of the Prius, and he waxed optimistic that Ford would have a similar car on the road very soon (don't hold your breath Lou!) The Boyer family also stopped by to check out our car and marvel at the gas mileage (they were driving from VA beach, and had already stopped three times for gas by the time they reached Pittsburgh. Along the way, we also met Allison Crow in Wheeling WV, who took a break from refueling her car to pose with our still half-full Prius. We also asked our wonderful waitress, April Frazier, to stop outside and pose for our last gratuitous car shot of the day.
Tomorrow, we're off to a press conference at Fordson High School, where local kids from Detroit will speak with us about the need for Ford to make cars that go farther on a gallon of gas. After that, it’s on to our first tour date with Lollapalooza. WOOHOO!
All Sierra Club Lollapalooza 2003 photos courtesy Crystal Durham/Sierra Student Coalition. Sierra Club collection; all rights reserved.