A Water Ethic

A Water Ethic

Living in Prescott, AZ, we are a high-desert area that has been in drought for many years, with more to come.  Water is a precious commodity, and there are constant arguments and discussions about our lack of it.  Aquifers (the Little Chino and the Big Chino) are being depleted at a terrifying rate, and the Big Chino is the headwaters for the Verde River, one of only a few truly natural rivers left in Arizona that will surely dry up if enough water is siphoned out of that aquifer..

Water issues seem to be just about everywhere.  Emphasis today is more on our carbon footprint and very little seems to be directed toward our nation's water.

A book I just read provides a wealth of information about this crisis, how we have managed to mess things up and how a number of countries and cities are taking steps to improve their water use.  Cynthia Barnett's book, Blue Revolution: Unmaking America's Water Crisis, is chuck full of stories on our water dilemma and how we can take steps to improve.  Almost 40% of the book consists of references used in the book, but Ms. Barnett writes in a very engaging way in spite of the citations.

Here is what I feel is any important quote from the book:

Aldo Leopold articulated “The Land Ethic” in his Sand County Almanac with these simple words: “A thing is right when it tends to preserve the integrity, stability, and beauty of the biotic community. It is wrong when it tends otherwise.”

We have clearly destroyed or harmed our biotic community by stressing growth and profitability, and Ms. Barnett states that we must value our precious water resources more than we have in the past and create a national "water ethic" that ensures we maintain our supply for future generations.

Please consider reading this book and become more aware of the water issue in our country and world.  You'll be surprised at what you can learn and perhaps become an advocate for making things better.

My First Train Trip -- Going Back Home

Going Back Home

We had a wonderful time in Cincinnati, seeing two of our kids and seven of our grandkids.  Even got to attend Amanda's sixth-grade graduation!

Now it's time to go back to Prescott.

One problem with train travel is that you get on when the train gets there, unless you are fortunate enough to live in a city that is the originating train site.  Our train from Cincinnati to Chicago starts in New York City, so the scheduled departure for us was 1:15 am.  Not wanting to stick our kids with this late departure, we arranged for a taxi.  This is not something I'm comfortable with, given the tales of late or never-arriving cabs.  And I like to have at least one back-up plan that was not available to me.  Fortunately, the cab picked us up on time and we got to Union Terminal well ahead of the scheduled departure.  Unfortunately the train didn't leave until about 2:30 am!

We rode coach on this first leg of our return.  There's plenty of room and the seats recline a little, but not enough for me to get any sleep!  Because the train was almost to Chicago, the toilet areas were pretty gross because I suspect they hadn't been cleaned during the trip.  I would recommend coach for relatively short legs, not the nine-hour kinds of trips.

We had a roomette for the Chicago-to-Flagstaff train trip, and we had learned in the outgoing trip that there is very little room; so we put our luggage in a storage area on the first level of the sleeper and only took what we needed for the night to the room.  Because I had trouble sleeping, I took over-the-counter sleeping pills and slept pretty well.

The meals were included with the roomette, and they were good, probably too good because my wife and I picked up a few pounds.  Oh to have an exercise car on the train!  As with the outgoing trip, we met a number of delightful people seated at our tables -- one of the real perks for train travel, in my opinion.

We got to Flagstaff pretty close to the scheduled arrival time, retrieved our car from the parking area and headed back toward Prescott.  It was good to be back home, and our cat Kasi was really glad to see us!

Would I take more train trips?  Yes, but we would change a few things, like taking less stuff.  I had a bag with lots of computer stuff (his and hers, iPod Touch, Kindle e-book reader, Lenovo 7-inch tablet) and will certainly not take all of that next time.  I would schedule our trips well ahead of time, to get better prices on the roomettes.  I'm considering getting an Amtrak credit card to collect miles -- we met one couple from California who took their entire trip on the miles they had on their card, even purchasing some miles to get into the right "zone" for the trip.

I'm suspecting that a rash I had on my legs was from bedbugs, but if this is correct it can happen just about anywhere today.  Might be good to inspect the roomette (which I didn't do) next time.  All of the upholstery is of course a great place for the creatures.

Thanks for reading my blog.  I hope some of this was useful to you.  Now to think about future Randlings!