Pacing the Planet is beginning to have
wider engagement with the country. While based at the beautiful, deepgreen forest of Lacey-Keosauqua State Park in Iowa, we walked north and west through Amish villages and rolling hills.
Our children are adapting to the
routine of riding in our covered carts fairly well, although our
youngest adventurer continues to want to lobby very fiercely for the
right to walk along the shoulder of the road with her parents, even
though she is not yet two. At our rest stops, she sneaks up to the
cart and tries to pull it out of camp.
We have encountered a share of
passers-by who stop and ask us about our mission, and take our
photograph; they often express an intention to post about our project
on social media. Pacing the Planet is already appearing on multiple
sites on the internet.
On Sunday night, as lightning flashed
above the manically swaying trees in the state park, we watched on
our portable internet connection as the front-line of storms,
spawning tornadoes from Nebraska to Iowa, approached our location.
After hearing of a tornado spotted nearby, we made the decision to
relocate from our two tents to the cinder-block bathhouse at the
campground. Surprisingly, our tents endured the 60 mph winds and
driving rain unscathed. In the bathhouse, we waited out the storm
with an older couple and their two Labrador Retrievers; they agreed
with us that the climate emergency is being seriously underplayed in
the media.
It wasn't until Monday night that we
learned of the tornado which struck the suburbs of Oklahoma City earlier that
day with 200 mph winds, flattening schools and houses, burying kids
in rubble, ruining lives. The truth is, the increasing, unusual
fluctuations of the jet stream lead to particularly intense spring
storms, spawning the F5 tornadoes we've seen devastate towns almost
every year now. Those movements of the jet stream are tied to the
melting of the Arctic, and that is the frontline of climate
change.
On Friday, we moved camp to Ottumwa,
and were delighted to find geese and ducks nesting around the ponds
at the city campground, as we've had to forgo keeping our own
waterfowl this year, so that we could do this walking. Friday
morning, we brought our carts to the grand, old city high school,
perched on a hill above the city, and gave a short presentation to 30
students. We allowed them to try pulling our carts, and they took
many photos of themselves posed inside and out of our vehicles. We
also gave an interview to a reporter from the Ottumwa Courier, who
will be writing a short piece on us.
We welcome the shedding our relative
anonymity, as the message we bring about the state of the climate
needs to spread very quickly indeed. There is hope in our hearts as
we continue to walk. Photographs of our journey can be found on our
website: www.pacingtheplanet.org.
