by Katie Pritchard

To read Part One of Slow Revolutions, click here

View from a bus window, somewhere between Strasbourg and Paris, France. By Caroline McCarty

I always used to sleep as a passenger on cars or busses; passing the hours is easier when I am unconscious, closed off from the world in a hunk of metal hurtling through space. Now I am alert, staring out the window of this bus in wonder. We move over the earth and roll up the sides of mountains with ease and speed as one man presses a gas pedal. In my mind I can see the energy being used to move us – it comes from the pipes beneath our feet, the trucks that delivered the fuel to the gas station, the complex oil refinery where people turned crude into refined, and it comes from billions of years of being in the earth, all to take me home. My legs remain idle below me, strong and restless.

I stored my bike at a friend’s house in Missoula after the course and got a ride to the Greyhound bus station. The bus was late and all I could think about was how I could have slept in longer. I sat in a plastic bench seat for over two hours waiting for the bus to come, trying to stay awake and fall asleep at the same time. I ended up somewhere in between, blurry-eyed and my head in a fog. At least I’ve got clean clothes on, I thought, with sleeves hiding the bandage covering my elbow. Somewhat presentable I stepped aboard my ride home, a metal and plastic transporter to hurtle me 367 miles in six long hours.

The bus was crowded. All seats but the one in the back, the one next to the lavatory, were taken. With a deep breath I walked down the aisle past sleeping passengers who took up two seats. One lady had an eagle feather with bead work on it in her hair, similar to ones some Native Americans wear. On second glance I notice that it was actually a car air freshener and smelled artificial vanilla wafting above the various body odors stewing around me. I plopped down next to a man with a Big Gulp and shoved my bag under the seat in front of me. As I looked around me and then to my right at the lavatory wall, I was glad I at least had something to lay my head against. The engine flared on and together we all moved in one vehicle.

What followed was a tragic comedy in which I had to hold the lavatory door shut while the bus wound its way up the mountain pass. If I failed to keep the flood gate closed, a vile odor leaked out and passengers turned their heads in disgust as they sneered at me. Eventually the man sitting next to me got up to help and, with me holding his Big Gulp, used a discarded paper cup to jam the door closed. We all felt victorious until a man got up and headed for my direction. After destroying our craftsmanship he stayed in for 20 minutes. We knew it wouldn’t be good when he came out.

Part of me wanted to start grabbing luggage from the rack above peoples’ heads and cramming up against the door. Don’t let him out! I thought. But out he came, leading a waft of old and new shit. Lucky for me we were moments away from out first stop. Some people got off in St. Regis and I moved up to an empty seat and tried to collect myself. Overwhelmed by the experience of being in a motor vehicle with dozens of other people and moving too fast to know what was outside the bus in the air and the land, I decided to try to sleep.

All I can think about now is how today I woke up in Missoula and will go to bed 367 miles away. The transport is abrupt. I’m not ready, I’m moving too fast. What was that we passed? What does it smell like outside? Are there frogs here, too? With no answers, no way to put on the brakes, I put in my headphones and close my eyes.

* * *

The adjustment to living apart from my bike and being home was hard. I had a fight with my dad about driving. I don’t fight with my parents and I never really have – I wasn’t too hormonal as a teenager and we have always been very close and communicate openly. My parents live seven miles out of town, however, and after days of watching them drive to and from town multiple times, I blew up. I picked up my dad from work, pulled over and started yelling. The argument began over his use of paper cups instead of a reusable thermos I got him, I believe, and went to hell from there in a tirade. Rage consumed me as I shouted “Fuck you!” and “you don’t get it, do you?” and “I don’t care what it takes, I’m not going to be part of the problem!” I even banged on the steering wheel.

As my fury settled and time passed, I came to understand the limits of how much each of us can do to make the world a better place, to be part of the solution. Not driving is one of the best ways I can limit my impact on the earth; to not drive is easy. The amount my parents drove was like nails on a chalk board to me. Even though I knew they simply don’t have enough time to commute to town on bike after getting my brother ready for school, I associated driving with nothing but a bad process, a bad product.

At the ExonMobil oil refinery we toured, workers wear hard hats, thick plastic protective eyewear, earplugs, face masks, full body suits, gloves and boots. They disappear and show up again amidst the labyrinth of pipes. Pipes caked in black grease and dust. Pipes that would melt your hand if you touched them. Pipes that transfer deadly gases that leech into water sources. We toured the facility in a van, not permitted to roll down the windows because of the particulate matter in the air. We never actually toured the inside of the maze but circled on a path in between the mechanized and the natural, the dirty and the clean, the toxic and the nourishing. Our tour guides directed our attention to osprey nests on manufactured platforms on the outside. It’s their way of compensating for what is on the inside where crude oil becomes butane, methane, and gas. Trucks come to get the gas and take it to various stations where people come to fill up, to fuel their transport, to emit toxins that are slowly eating away the world I love.

Back in Missoula for a final semester, I eat a good breakfast of oatmeal with nuts and cranberries and fuel up for my morning commute. I am reminded daily in looking at the panniers on my back wheels and in the mirror at my left elbow, that anything really is possible; despite the option to ride the 700 plus miles through Montana in a safe, warm car in hours compared to weeks, I chose to pedal and came away with beautiful scars. For now I ride my bike, because I can. Maybe some day I won’t be able to as much, my life will be too busy with a real job and kids, but I sense a revolution coming. Some day we may all be rewarded for not using oil to get from one point to another, and we will have the time for healthier commutes, or at least a different kind of road trip.

Katie Pritchard is a fanatic of the outdoors and the education it has to offer us. She originates from Walla Walla, Washington, and currently resides in Missoula, MT.