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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 5
Rally in Philly
Look Ma! At right, our fearless Sierra Student Coalition correspondent gets her first ever tattoo at the Lollapalooza mobile tattoo station.
Today's tales from the road: After surviving the torrential rains of today, I have even more faith in our little hybrid! Not only did the gas mileage hold up but we also passed many an SUV pulled off (or run off) the side of the road thanks to the buckets of rain that hit the Pennsylvania Turnpike. While we did have to kick the Prius down to 55, we were able to make it into Philly by early afternoon.
Tonight, we had the opportunity to attend an amazing judicial nomination town hall meeting in Philly, organized by our star Delaware organizer, Diana Silbergeld. The forum, attended by former Sierra Club President Adam Werbach and a number of progressive coalition partners, was organized to highlight some of President Bush's most extreme judicial nominees, and to demonstrate to Senator Arlen Specter that citizens across PA are concerned about his votes on these nominees. The prime topic of the forum was Bill Pryor, a former Attorney General from Alabama who has stated that the Clean Water Act is unconstitutional and that environmental justice cases should "generally fail". Specter will have to vote in committee on Pryor's nomination tomorrow morning, so this event will hopefully show him the broad opposition against extreme anti-environmental nominees like Pryor.
The event was a great success, with more than 150 people attending and some great actions taken during the event (we passed around our cell phones so that people attending could leave a message on Specter's voice mail). After the event, we went to celebrate at a local Chinese restaurant. While we were hoping for a feast, all we got was water that tasted like spit, a drink with a bug in it, and food that tasted like old tires. At least the beer was fresh!
After dinner, our endless day got even more exciting. Crystal's temporary ride was two and a half hours late, and we had to wait in the rain for their van to show up. Good thing we brought a lot of CDs, and had a dance party to 50 Cent and Jurassic Five on the side of the road! Once we got back on the road to NJ, we got lost twice en route to our hotel, and finally checked in after 2 am.
One other thing: We'd like to welcome Katie and Heather, two DC interns to our Lollapalooza trip! Katie works with me on the field team, and Heather works with our global population program. Katie and Heather came to Philly for the judicial nominations event, but we decided to kidnap them, throw them in the back of the Prius, and take them on the tail end of our Lolla trip through Jersey!
All Sierra Club Lollapalooza 2003 photos courtesy Crystal Durham/Sierra Student Coalition. Sierra Club collection; all rights reserved.