Last Sunday, I set out from Lake Tahoe, Calif., with nothing but a backpack full of clothes, a
toothbrush and a driver’s license.
Life in the “boonies” of Tahoe beat to a different drum. Everyone there had similar priorities: whether it was to escape what was wearing them dry, absorb themselves whole-heartedly into what they came to work on, or sit back in perpetual relaxation. I probably exerted a combination of all three.
Now I’m back in Eugene — broke as a joke — but feeling so refreshed.
Traveling to other parts of the country (and other parts of the world if we’re lucky) brings us out of our comfort zone. It makes us question our core values and why we live the way we do. It exposes us to new cultures in a way that fosters personal growth.
Contrary to popular belief, there is a way to travel “green” and “on the cheap.”
If you’re a mobile college student or a downright impulsive adventurer, there are a number of travel media I openly advocate. Now, mind you, use caution. For although hitchhiking and Craigslist have always worked for me, tomorrow I could wind up on the side of the road missing both kidneys.
But so far, my hitchin’ thumb has never let me down.
On one trip home from Portland, I found my lifelines to be out of touch and my dough flow running low. I haggardly scribbled “Eugene?” on the back of a paper grocery bag and made the walk to the nearest freeway entrance.
The three hours I spent with my thumb up, smile wide and backpack strapped tightly were both excruciating (because of the 95-degree heat) and challenging. As a relatively novice hitchhiker, I had no idea how to improve my success rate. I’d have to give drivers a damn good reason to pick me up. Sure enough, when I stuck out my chest, took off my sunglasses, and made genuine eye contact, a gung-ho-for-life fellow named Jesse picked me up.
“I like to size ‘em up before I pick ‘em up,” Jesse said. “You don’t seem the type, ‘a dude who’d be pullin’ any knives on me’ … or anythin’ like that.”
Jesse was raised in the San Juan Islands in Washington. His family had their own island, where they grew all of their own food and used solar power.
They liked living “off the grid.”
But with each rowboat ride to school, Jesse pondered the “real world” he had been sheltered from. He began to feel his family’s lifestyle was selfish and ill-fated. Though his father embraced a primitivist, technology-free lifestyle in protest of the human destruction of nature, he wasn’t part of the solution.
Jesse decided to jump ship and try his hand on the main shore. Today he builds “earth-friendly” houses in Eugene.
I’m glad I met Jesse. The empty seat in his car went to good use that day.
Empty seats. I see so many on the highway. The idea of “sharing” in America sometimes seems so foreign. Even as I take off for a camping trip today, I feel awkward asking a buddy for his sleeping bag. It’s been sitting in his closet for months, but having to borrow it still makes me want one of my own.
The time frame for my return from Tahoe wouldn’t allow for hitchhiking. So I wrote up a quick Craigslist “rideshare” ad and sorted through the responses.
I wound up riding with a Berkeley elementary school teacher named Tanya. She teaches gardening and nutrition to kids and was headed to Eugene to meet with her Oregon Country Fair crew. She lived in the Whiteaker neighborhood for 10 years during the height of the green anarchist movement before moving to Berkeley. Driven by dissent, Tanya didn’t own a cell phone, made her backpack out of recycled tires and fermented her own wine. She drove a 15-year old, four-cylinder pick-up truck.
“When I lived in Eugene, the anarchist scene was much more alive. Heck, Free and Critter got 22 years to life for setting fire to three SUVs. The town has changed a lot in 10 years,” she said.
Tanya thought there couldn’t be anything more revolutionary than growing your own food. Though she previously subscribed to anarchist ideals, a trip to Cuba and a half-decade in the Bay Area had put her on the collectivist path. She spoke of the Oregon Country Fair as a way to build a true working community.
Although I didn’t agree with Tanya’s techno-phobia or Jesse’s vehicle choice (a Chevy Tahoe, despite his primitivist upbringing), I’m glad I took their empty seats. Low-impact travel techniques like hitchhiking may be dangerous, but they expose you to the wild transients of the open road. Our culture breeds us into the submissive comfort of our own homes and cars.
Sharing — both in travel and in everyday life — builds a more trusting society. It builds neighborhood gardens. It builds parks. It builds events like the Oregon Country Fair.
It builds community.
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Green travel: one thumb at a time
Daily Emerald
June 27, 2010
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