Malkolm is cycling on! He is now cycling from Alaska to Washington DC, and then continuing on to the UN Climate Change conference in Cancun in December.
It all started with Bird Year, Malkolm and his parents' year-long, fossil-fuel-free journey in search of birds. Cycling a total of 13,133 miles (21,144 km), they identified 548 different bird species and raised more than $25,000 for bird conservation. Bird Year turned them into confirmed cyclists and taught them that climate change was more serious than they had thought.
In 2009, Malkolm biked from Whitehorse to Ottawa as a part of Pedal for the Planet: the project called for the Canadian Government to become a leader in the struggle to come to grips with climate change. The Harper Government did not even meet with the young cyclists.
Malkolm is now 18 and just finished high school. On August 24, he dipped his foot in the Pacific Ocean in Skagway, Alaska. Then headed up and over the White Pass to the Alaska Highway on his journey to Washington and on to Cancun.



Thursday, May 29, 2008

Bird Year Lunches (Malkolm)


Bread lore hasn’t reached Texas. Most bread and bagels we eat are shipped from places like Illinois. But clearly, the Illinoisians don’t want to send their good bread south. On the west coast, even teeny tiny towns have an artisan bakery or a funky cafe. Not in Texas.

Fortunately, we only have 22 lunches to go. The vast majority of those lunches will resemble the lunches that we’ve been having for the past few months. Stale bagels (baked in Illinois). But when I read the package more closely I saw that it was merely distributed in Illinois. I saw to my horror, “Product of Canada.” Oh no! What’s happened in Canada?

They taste like they were made back when we still had 42 lunches to go. Occasionally you can find an artisan loaf at WalMart, which means that it’s only 8 days old, and that a bread artist stuck a bit of garlic on top.

Inside the sandwiches is spread the contents of mayonnaise packets that we borrowed from a Burger King. According to another long distant cyclist, it takes 317 borrowed mayo packets to equal one mayo jar. Then we bring out the cheese sauce – the soft, oily product that is the outcome of keeping cheese unrefrigerated in the 100 + degree heat.

But don’t get me wrong.

I’m not complaining.

If Wendy heard me complaining, she’d use it as excuse to eat some of my artisan sandwich.

No comments: