Matt's post-mortem blog

We're back in Davis. I start work tomorrow. This is my last entry. A quick post-mortem of the trip.

One: Our meetings in DC were incredible. We met with David Moulton, the staff director of the select committee on energy independence and global warming. He was very receptive to our petitions and insights we gathered along our trip. But more importantly, he knows his stuff and the House is really moving on Global Warming. We can all thank Nancy Pelosi for this. She is making it her signature issue and progress is being made. There is an energy bill which will be in conference committee when Congress reconvenes. It is far from perfect, but it is a good step in the right direction. Our second meeting was with Karl Mulloney-Radke, a staffer at Thompson's office. He is not Thompson's staff for global warming, but he was an incredibly articulate and interested young man. I think it planted in Yonah the idea of going to Washington to intern after college. The third meeting was with Boxer's staff director for the committee on Environment and Public Works, Bettina Poirer. This woman is remarkable for both breadth of knowledge and passion. And Boxer is committee chair! Things are looking up for the environment with these powerful women and their staff taking the leadership. I can feel the planet about to cool.

We did the museum thing and I highly recommend the new museum on the American Indian. Profound.

While the museums and meetings and food, don't forget the food, in DC were sublime, the actually taking leave of the city was a nightmare. First we had to box the bikes. Turned out that The Beast was too big for the airplane. The next option was UPS, but we couldn't get ahold of them and the UPS store was hard to reach from the bike shop where we boxed things up. Not only that, but we had tickets to the Nationals-Mets game at 7:00 and it was already 5:30. What to do? I swear God spoke to me and said, "Sell the Beast!" AFter all, I'm probably going to retire from tandem riding. So I strode back into the bike shop. There was a staffer who liked the bike and I said, "For $200 it's yours." How could he turn it down? For those who know bikes, it is a classic. So he took it and we stuffed the two other bikes in a cab and went to the hotel. We made the opening pitch by 45 seconds.

Nightmare 2 was at the airport. I bought tickets from Travelocity for Frontier Airlines. Two days after I bought them, I realized we needed more time to make the trip and I tried to change them. These tickets were non-refundable or changable because they were block tickets, but I explained the situation to someone in charge, and after paying a large change fee we changed the dates. Fast forward to Saturday at the airport. We have the seats reserved for us, but Frontier would not let us on the plane because Travelocity apparently did not clear or pay for the changed ticket. To say I went apoplectic would be a mild understatement. All the oneness with the universe I attained by the sweat of my brow this summer came to a sudden end when the guy was telling me I would have to buy 4 new tickets to sit in the seats that I already paid for. I'm sweating just telling the story. Djina made me leave, so Homeland Security wouldn't have to be called. Finally, they figured the thing out and we got the green light. Unfortunately, the guy behind the counter was quite green, only third day on the job and probably would not get into a rocket science graduate program. He moved so slowly that our bikes were left in Washington DC and put on a later flight.

But none of that bothers me. The trip was fantastic, a once in a lifetime journey. Stay tuned for the slide show. We'll tell you the date soon.