In Africa, if your ride breaks down you stop. When it rains, and the lorry (big cattle truck) gets bogged up to the axles in mud you just unload it and sit by the side of the road and wait for the rain to stop and the road to dry out. It’s like a forced time out. There is nothing you can do about it so there is no point complaining about it. There is a beauty in this that we have lost in our society. The concept of waiting for three days for a road to dry out is, for the most part, incomprehensible to us. Unless, of course, you are on a bike. Today we woke up to wind and rain, pounding (thankfully) outside. We were fortunate to have moved from one wonderful host to the next and are now safely camped inside the abode of Dawn and Lyle Baker. In the Montanan tradition we were perhaps getting a little too accustomed to, welcomed us with open arms. With the 8 mile ride of yesterday still fresh in our minds where the winds were blowing so hard we were literally nearly blown off the road, an executive decision was made to stop and pause for the day. Instead of loading up the bikes and trudging into the wet and cold, we instead made ourselves perfectly comfortable around Dawn and Lyle’s kitchen table and enjoyed what was voted, by the whole group, the “best french toast EVER”.
We used our day off the road as a day of rest, and to start our latest assignment: to write a citizen letter to someone in a decision – making position, voicing our concerns and suggestions from what we have garnered from our journey thus far across Montana. We also utilized the benefits of electricity to watch a video presentation on the effects of climate change already affecting Glacier National Park – our next big destination, providing the trusty steads aren’t out of action for another day. In class we discussed this presentation, and the impacts climate change is having already, and is likely to have in the not-very-distant-at-all future.
Putting it bluntly, the big picture stuff is frightening. We can say goodbye to glaciers in Glacier National Park by 2030. The ramifications this has for the immediate flora and fauna of this area is large, But even larger is the extended ecosystem consequences that make me want to bury my head in the sand ostrich style. Before we all went out into Lyle’s wheat paddock and slit our proverbial wrists the conversation shifted to our roles in all of this. For me, I have to think small, because I don’t see solutions on a large scale. I see the small solutions that fit into that larger one though. I was thinking, again, about the possibility of solar. I was thinking of that lorry in Kenya that had already been waiting for the mud to dry for two days, and I thought of how the people sitting there waiting could at least grab their cell phone and give their relatives a call to let them know where they were. Sometime soon, hopefully these same people will get to their village and be able to collect their water from the community well that their solar pump has pumped there for them, rather than the sweat of 10 of the local village boys. Just as the communications infrastructure totally bypassed land lines in Africa, I can’t see why renewable technologies such as solar won’t allow the same thing to happen in the energy sector…bypass the grid and provide local power to local villages so they can recharge their phones to let the relative know the lorry is 3 days late.
In Montana we have seen many examples of individuals powering their own already efficient houses with renewable power from the wind and sun. From what I have seen of Montana so far I’d be leaving the solar to Africa and running with the wind idea. No shortage of that from what I can see! So I plucked that head of mine right back out of the sand and went for a drive with Lyle to see his dry land wheat operation and some birds at the lake down the road. This was offset (in mind only) by our chefs for the evening biking into town to purchase supplies, rather than accepting the kind offer of Lyle’s to drive in the pickup. After all it was a day off, so it was not like we could use the excuse of no time for a ride.
–Felicity “Flick” Anderson, University of Queensland
What a great perspective, both with regard to weather (wet roads) and adoption of energy alternatives (bypassing the grid). Great blog! I am totally impressed with what you all you guys have gone through during the last couple of weeks, the weather is clearly not a deterent to your enthusiasm!
Keep rolling (when the roads allow)!
SM