Random notables from the road

We just pulled into Dallas after several days on the road, with stops in Barstow CA, Flagstaff AZ and El Paso TX. The four day drive consisted of endless desert, highway mirages, tiny towns, and in general, tons of wide open space. There were times when we would fill up the tank when it was just under half full because we were afraid we wouldn't see another gas station for a couple hours.

But it was a great reminder of how beautiful the Western U.S. is, and how when you're stuck in a car for 10 hours straight for a few days in a row, random odd things tend to happen.


Here are some highlights from the road:

-While driving through the Mojave listening to Elton John's Tumbleweed Connection (an album we highly recommend, even if you think you don't like Elton John), a tumbleweed hit our car.

-Shortly after pulling our of the check point, two dozen birds swooped on down and simultaneously poop-bombed our car's front windshield. Definitely a coordinated air strike!

-40.0 MPG (that's right - I'm a clean energy geek and I keep track of these things!)

-One of the best things about all of the open space in the U.S. Southwest and Texas is that there is lots of wind and sunshine - a perfect place for large renewable energy projects. We drove by several wind and solar energy projects, including:

The Tehachapi Pass wind farm in CA, one of the oldest large wind farms in the U.S., developed in the 1980's.













One of the Solar Energy Generation Station (SEGS) projects in the Mojave desert. The SEGS installations, nine projects located at three sites in the Mojave and built in the 1980's and early 1990's, are the first large concentrated solar thermal projects ever built in the world.

And towards the end of our drive, huge modern wind farms in West Texas. While I was quite familiar with the scale of wind energy development in Texas in recent years, you really have to see it with your own eyes - hundreds of huge wind turbines that go on and on in all directions as far as you can see. Wind power is now the second largest source of new electricity generation in the U.S., and these projects in Texas are a big reason why.