WORLDFIRE - Chapter 4

A State Called Synchronicity

“I am open to the guidance of synchronicity, and do not let expectations hinder my path.” His Holiness the Dalai Lama

If you have ever felt guided by forces larger than you, you probably also know what it feels like to let go of expectations for how things should unfold and trust in a larger intelligence. Lying in my tent high atop Colorado’s eastern plains, I didn’t presume to know every detail of how a green industrial revolution would play out. I just knew that a green energy moon shot was needed and that calling for it was right. Stirred awake by the sun’s rays streaming through the thin fabric of my tent, I roused myself to brew a cup of tea and hydrate some instant oatmeal. Already behind on my blogging and video uploads, and needing some recovery time after several long ride days, I decided to put in an “office day” at the Hitch’n Post.

My campsite had everything I needed: a picnic table, Internet access, electricity, drinking water, and hot showers. The picnic table even had a roof for shade, providing welcome relief from the blazing sun as I pecked away at my laptop from sunrise to sundown. It was there that I met “Dizzy” Dean Burns, the campground’s head of maintenance. From time to time, Dizzy would roll by in his golf cart to shoot the breeze or crack a joke. Welcome distractions, his friendly interruptions broke up the tedium of my work. When I asked to interview him for my YouTube channel, the self-described truck driver, Harley rider, and guitar player hesitantly agreed. Like almost everyone I was to meet on my journey, my interview with Diz was spontaneous. I had no idea what he would say. 

“He’s popping the clutch, pedaling his way to Washington, DC, no gasoline, no oil, just pure grit… and a will to have a wonderful quest in his way of what he’d like to see America, and in fact the whole planet, come to,” Diz said. “And I agree with him totally… I think it’s a wonderful concept that he’s going to try to make a difference, and we’d like to see, my personal self, like to see America go green.” Deeply touched by Diz’s gritty affirmation, I drifted off to sleep that night wondering just how many other Harley riders, truck drivers, and guitar players out there would like to see America go green. I suspected it was a lot.

Although a big part of me wanted to stay put for another day, I took a visit by red-tailed hawk #2 to my campsite the night before as a sign to keep moving. Rising early with the sun, I struck camp, bid a fond farewell to Diz, and raced down the steep hill into town. The steep incline that had been so grueling pedaling up was a joy flying down, forcing me to “pop the clutch” to keep from shattering the speed limit. At the bottom of the hill, I rolled up to a homey-looking diner and fueled up with my standard power breakfast of eggs, hash browns, oatmeal, toast, and coffee before continuing east. After about an hour of strenuous pedaling, I was thrilled to reach my first state border, marked by a sign reading: “NEBRASKA…the good life.” I have crossed more state lines driving in cars than I can remember, but doing it under my own power was another thing entirely. Having never ridden a bike that far in my life, and with more than 250 miles behind me, it felt like the Ride for Renewables was really on. I passed a rickety old wind turbine pumping water in a farmer’s prairie, reminding me of just how long wind power has been working for us. A few short miles later, after nipping off a tiny corner of Nebraska, I hit my third state: Kansas.

Anyone who says it’s all downhill from the Rockies to the Atlantic Ocean has obviously never pedaled through Kansas. I was about to be introduced to the long, rolling inclines that define western Kansas, hills that would present the first real physical test of the journey. At this point still gauging the strength of my legs, I chose not to engage the electric-assist motor, despite a nagging pain in my right knee begging me to reconsider. Instead, I crawled up one long, steep roller coaster hill after another in the lowest gear, using the speed and momentum of racing down one hill to help me climb the next. The weight of the trike loaded down with all my gear, and me in it, made for snail-like climbing, but I had some unusual help on this day. Twice, as I braced for a particularly long hill to attack, guess who appeared in a nearby tree as if to urge me on? Red-tailed hawks #3 and #4. Those hawks might just as well have been perched on my shoulder. Their reassuring presence was all the encouragement I needed.

Later that day, with the worst of the hills behind me, I spied a water tower on the horizon and soon found myself standing in the office of the St. Francis Herald, bike helmet in hand. They ran a story with a photo of the trike called “Clean energy drives rider.” Not long after, I found myself in front of a grocery store in Bird City, fielding questions from friendly locals in between bites of ice cream I had purchased for a treat. It was still early in the journey, but to my delight, almost every person I had met enthusiastically supported the ten-year renewable electricity goal for America.

Near dusk, I rolled into the tiny town of McDonald, Kansas to a wonderful surprise. Pedaling down Main Street, I was greeted by two large, white wind turbines towering over some farmland at the edge of town. Inquiring at a liquor store (which I discovered are great sources for local information) about who owned them, the friendly proprietor dialed up the owner who agreed to come down and meet me. Moments later, A.B. Fisher rolled up in his pickup truck. His head shaded by a cowboy hat, he eyed me cautiously from the window of his truck. After sizing me up over some small talk, he must have figured I was all right because he invited me back to his home. Standing in a grassy field with his new 25- and 100-kilowatt wind turbines towering behind us, this once retired, then unretired farmer (“couldn’t handle the chair,” he told me), shared his desire to become energy independent. As his uber-affectionate farm cat rubbed up against my legs, begging to be picked up, A.B. told me about the wind turbines he built for his home and farm operations:

“The motive was to try to get this to where we could create our own energy, and all our irrigation wells are electric… It could be a big boon for the irrigation deal, for farmers, provided there’s a little help like on grants, tax incentives, and things like that to help a person afford to put ‘em up… I wanted to kinda do it where our family could be, the farm could be, self-sufficient as we could get it.” 

He then talked about the “American way” and his desire to see America become energy independent:

“I’m a conservative and I believe very strongly in this American way, where you’ve got a chance to go as far as your ability and ambition will take you. If a guy can get these things [wind turbines], and the solar power, and all these other things, we can get, maybe, much more independent from these other countries, and if we don’t, it’s gonna be a serious thing…”

We then dove into politics, where A.B. had some choice words for the two major political parties that touched on another central theme of my ride:

“I’m very much in favor of this conservative attitude, and I might get in trouble for this, but I just couldn’t root for that Tea Party anymore. I think the leaders from both sides have treated Congress like a fraternity. And I think that there’s a lot of that that’s been lost, the idealism, that they should go there and perform, you know? And if something is not changed, both parties, the direction this thing is going, that they need to get back to some of these basic things, or it’s going to take us down.”

In many ways, A.B.’s is just the kind of entrepreneurial thinking we need to get America back on track. He didn’t wait for the government. He took matters into his own hands. Other farmers are working directly with wind companies to host wind turbines on their land, getting paid thousands of dollars annually for each turbine. I just find something poetic about the idea of family farmers, who work so closely with the land, earning income from harvesting the wind. It not only makes us more energy independent; it helps keep them on the land growing America’s food.

Did you know that enough wind blows through the Midwest every day to meet 100 percent of America’s electricity demand? In fact, the wind blows so hard in the corridor of America running from North Dakota to Texas, with the economic potential so huge, it is commonly referred to as the “Saudi Arabia of Wind.” And that is just what is blowing through the Midwest. Many other states also possess a huge windfall in wind, as does pretty much the entire U.S. coastline. A quick look at any wind map produced by the National Renewable Energy Laboratory shows just how rich America is in this inexhaustible resource. America’s wind power potential is many times greater than total U.S. electricity consumption. The rest is mostly details (harnessing, distributing, and storing all of that clean, free fuel). Yet wind power today supplies only about 10% of U.S. electricity needs (versus almost 50% for Denmark and about 30% for Ireland and Portugal). The U.S. was not so very long ago the undisputed world leader in wind power. The dream of a wind energy revolution began in California in the 1980s, but like that neglected, droopy houseplant we have all seen in someone’s home that never gets enough attention, America’s wind dream slowly withered from neglect. It’s time to revive the dream.

If you are wondering what gives, it’s because we aren’t trying very hard. I know that because I used to work in the wind industry. While we are doing markedly better with tapping the wind’s potential than we are with tapping the power of the sun, we are still not moving anywhere near fast enough. The last I looked, the top four wind states (ranked in order of capacity developed) were: Texas, Iowa, Oklahoma, and Kansas, all traditionally so-called “red” states. Three of the four get more than 40 percent of their electricity generation from wind, but it was state and local policymakers who got this done, with little help from the federal government. Imagine what states and local municipalities could do as part of a national green energy moon shot mission.

Now just as the sun doesn’t always shine, the wind doesn’t always blow, but the sun is always shining somewhere and the wind is always blowing somewhere. This is why grid system operators incorporate weather forecasting into their planning. Technological and geographical diversity are also keys to grid stability. The more different types of renewable energy sites we have in more places, the smoother the average power output becomes. With enough interconnected renewable projects feeding reliable power into the electrical grid, operators can direct the energy where it needs to go. Battery storage is yet another key to ensuring that wind energy is available around the clock. To prove the point, Tesla built a 100-Megawatt battery in Australia in less than 100 days. Connected to a wind farm, the battery provides dispatchable electricity 24/7. I learned of an even larger liquid air battery being constructed in the UK to store renewable energy.

No energy technology has zero impacts and wind power is no exception. Objections commonly raised to wind projects range from avian fatalities, to wildlife habitat fragmentation, to viewshed issues, impacts that can usually be mitigated with proper planning, responsible siting, and proactive community engagement. There is also the unavoidable impact of mining for materials and the carbon footprint of steel and concrete production, even if those impacts are small compared to the status quo fossil fuel infrastructure, which unlike wind power, requires a ceaseless stream of polluting fuels to be mined, refined, and delivered. The wind industry nevertheless needs to make every effort to minimize the impacts of mining for materials. The industry also needs to step up its game in turbine blade recycling, which is still in its infancy. Nearly all of a wind turbine’s components can currently be recycled or reused, but not the used blades, most of which are discarded as waste. We need industry-wide recycling protocols to close the loop on fiberglass blade production.

Just as with solar power, wind power costs are plummeting. Consider this stunning finding from the International Renewable Energy Agency: “With every doubling of cumulative installed capacity for onshore wind, investment costs drop by 9% while the resulting electricity becomes 15% cheaper.” Fossil fuels and nukes simply can’t compete with these economics. Along with solar, wind is far and away the cheapest form of new power today. Wind power has also become a major U.S. jobs engine. The American wind industry currently employs more than 100,000 U.S. workers, supporting more than 500 factories in nearly all 50 states manufacturing all the build-related parts. In fact, wind turbine service technician is the second fastest growing occupation in the U.S., with a median salary of more than $56,000 a year.

Engineers have only begun to tap the true power of the wind. Knowing that the higher you get, the stronger the winds blow, the U.S. Department of Energy (DOE) in 2015 produced a report detailing how the “next generation of wind turbines could make reliable, cost-effective wind power a reality in all 50 states.” Think about that. The report explained “that advanced wind turbines with taller towers and longer blades will allow us to reach stronger, more consistent winds found high above the ground, unlocking wind energy's potential across an additional 700,000 square miles.” A map of wind resource potential in the report lit up most of nearly every southern state in the U.S., not heretofore considered a significant wind resource region. A related 2015 DOE report showed how wind power could provide 35% of the nation’s electricity by 2050. Viewing wind’s potential through the lens of the climate crisis, we have to do more than that, and faster, which offshore wind can help us achieve.

According to the International Energy Agency, offshore wind projects alone could meet all of global electricity demand. In early 2018, the world’s largest wind turbine–an 8.8-Megawatt giant towering more than 625 feet tall–was installed offshore in Scotland by Vattenfall, a wind company owned by the Swedish state. According to the company, “just one rotation of the blades can power the average UK home for a day.” Later that year, the same company started supplying electricity to the Danish electricity grid from Denmark’s largest offshore project. Its 49 8.4-Megawatt turbines are expected to provide enough electricity to power 425,000 homes on an annual basis.

By 2021, Europe had more than 5,000 offshore wind turbines, generating 25,000 megawatts of energy, enough to power eight million homes. According to the European Parliament, the offshore wind sector has generated 210,000 jobs in Europe. In sad contrast, the U.S. has only two little offshore wind projects. The first, called the Block Island Wind Farm, is a five-turbine, 30-Megawatt project off the coast of Rhode Island. The second, a two-turbine, 12-Megawatt project called Coastal Virginia Offshore Wind, is the first offshore wind project to be installed in federal waters. That’s it. Almost none of America’s immense offshore wind potential has yet been tapped. This despite 12 out of 14 states on the Atlantic coast having more offshore wind potential than their state’s entire electricity consumption, with the Pacific coast states also possessing more offshore wind energy potential than their electricity loads. This despite the National Renewable Energy Laboratory declaring that offshore wind alone “could supply enough electricity to meet the needs of the entire United States two times over.” The Biden administration has a goal of deploying 30,000 MW of offshore wind power by 2030, which is a start, but nowhere near enough. We have a lot of work to do to catch up with Europe, but we also have a lot of long coastlines with which to do it. We also have a lot to learn about possible wildlife impacts from offshore wind projects, making it imperative that we approach this work with humility and respect.

But it shouldn’t all be about utility scale projects, where corporations pocket the bulk of the profits. We also need community wind projects that are collectively owned by local landowners. These not only keep more profits in the community; they generate more jobs. It is not a coincidence that the world’s wind energy leader, Denmark, got there mostly through wind cooperatives. We also need to capitalize on small residential wind turbines in areas of the country where there is sufficient wind resource. And we need a plethora of one-off wind projects like A.B. Fischer’s.

With A.B.’s turbines in my rearview mirror, my thoughts turned to where I would lay my head down for the night. Having been told it was okay to camp in the town square, I pedaled back into town in the fading light and quickly pitched my tent in the grass behind a gazebo. After preparing a freeze-dried dinner, I blogged for a while inside the privacy of my tent before dropping off into a sound sleep, exhausted from a 73-mile ride day.

The next morning, I was awakened by the sound of people filing into the post office across the street to pick up their mail. Knowing how fast word travels in small towns, I figured most of McDonald’s 160 residents probably already knew about the stranger camped in the middle of their town square. As I began to stir, as if to assure I was really up, I was jarred by a single blast of the town’s tornado warning siren from across the square (someone’s idea of a practical joke?). Not seeing any storm clouds on the horizon, I stumbled out of the tent to a town already in motion and quickly got moving myself.

A day that began with a loud jolt would be marked by wind and pain. Severe, gusting crosswinds made for slow going, even with the trike’s aerodynamic shell. By late morning the pain in my right knee was so bad I finally relented and kicked in the electric-assist motor for the first time. This made pedaling the steeper hills a lot more bearable. With the success of my mission hinging on my knees, I knew I had to be careful. I could not afford to be sidelined by injury.

Anxious to avoid another public wake-up call in another town square, my goal was to make it to a campground that night. Since the closest one was 82 miles away, an early start gave me an outside chance of reaching it before dark. Knowing that falling short would leave me pedaling on the county road’s narrow shoulder in the dark, I pedaled hard. But that didn’t stop me from visiting towns like Atwood, where I did an interview with the Rawlins County Square Deal, and Oberlin, which announced itself with its telltale grain silos. Or dropping in on country music radio station KFNF, where I enjoyed a live on-air chat with the DJ. Along the way, I encountered a semi-truck hauling a huge section of a turbine tower, telling me that someone was putting up more wind turbines nearby. Someday, all of those semis rolling down the highway, and the pick-up trucks that typify rural America, will be electric, powered by the wind and the sun.

After eight hours of hard pedaling, with a little help from my electric-assist motor, I rolled up to a four-foot-high statue of a prairie dog next to a sign saying “Prairie Dog State Park.” I was never so happy to see a giant prairie dog in my life. It was about 20 minutes after sunset. Also greeting me at the turnoff was a swarm of ravenous mosquitoes, but I shook them off as I sped down the road to the closed visitor center where I folded some cash into the payment envelope and dropped it into the slot. The “dogs” were already asleep in their dens underneath the High Plains mixed grass prairie. I would not be far behind. My campsite afforded a beautiful view of a vast blue reservoir. For some reason I felt drawn to pitch my tent under a Cottonwood tree a little way down the hill. After finding an outlet to recharge my electric-assist battery pack, I rolled over to the bathhouse for a hot shower. Afterwards, I dined with another freeze-dried dinner before retiring to my tent and falling into a deep slumber.

I awoke the next morning feeling more refreshed than I had felt in a long time. It’s hard to explain, but I attributed this to the life force emanating from that lovely Cottonwood tree. It felt like a protective, rejuvenating blanket had covered me all night while I slept. Enjoying the serenity and peace of my campsite, I took my time packing up. When I finally rocketed past the Black-Tailed Prairie Dog colony on my way out of the park, greeted by a series of high-pitched chirps, I was surprised by the size of the colony. Smaller than many prairie dog towns in my home county of Boulder, it brought home to me the epic scale of our war on prairie dogs in this country. This got me thinking about some of what I have learned about these fascinating animals. Like humans, prairie dogs are very social animals that live in close-knit families within larger prairie dog towns. Recognized as a keystone species critical to the food chain, biologists have observed them to possess highly developed cognitive abilities. Their sophisticated system of communication includes high-pitched alarm calls to warn the colony of approaching predators, with different calls for different predators, such as coyotes, dogs, hawks, and humans. Like people, prairie dogs even speak in different dialects, depending on where they live. If more people understood just how intelligent and social these animals are, we might do more to make room for them as fellow planetary travelers. My home county of Boulder is struggling mightily to balance the rights of property owners who don’t want prairie dogs digging up their land with the intrinsic right of prairie dogs to exist. Where these two worlds collide, simple solutions have proven elusive. But outside of urban areas, increasing numbers of ecologically enlightened landowners like Ted Turner are welcoming prairie dogs onto their land holdings in an effort to bring them back.

I also thought a lot about cows, which not surprisingly, I encountered almost daily on my trek. More often than not, the cows I encountered would stop grazing, look up and stare at me, maintaining their gaze well after I had passed. This got me to thinking that cows have gotten a bit of a bum rap, as they are far too curious to be dumb. I saw cows and bulls in pastures as far as hundreds of yards away raise their heads from grazing on grass to stop and stare at the yellow space pod rolling by their pasture. Most of the horses I encountered were also curious, with the braver ones trotting up for a closer look. One particularly spirited horse went so far as to excitedly run with me for a spell and probably would have kept going if not for a fence blocking its way. My best guess is the cows and horses were bored with cars and trucks, and were intrigued by the unusual craft. The red-tailed hawks, on the other hand, always seemed to know.

Years later, I would learn that hawks are known in shamanic circles as bringers of messages. Hawk’s appearance has been widely interpreted as an invitation to focus and pay attention. This shamanic interpretation of Hawk energy by Earth defender Ina Woolcott struck a particularly deep chord with me: “A Red tailed Hawk is special. It will ALWAYS be with you, for life. It has direct ties to the Kundalini, the seat of primal life force... you need to be aware of and work toward fulfilling your soul’s destiny. It reflects far greater intensity of energy within your life: physically, emotionally and mentally. Spiritual forces will be felt strong within you.” Now when Hawks #5, #6, and #7 appeared on trees and power poles on my side of the road that day, I did not know any of this. All I knew was that something special was happening with these winged visitors. So I honored each encounter as sacred. I took each as encouragement that I was on the right path.

In the realm of more earthly matters, I stopped by two small town Kansas newspapers–the Norton Telegraph and Phillipsburg’s Advocate–for yet more interviews with reporters. I could not have been happier with the media coverage the ride was receiving. I was having so much fun making the news I didn’t have time to read the news. For every person on the street I talked to about my mission, I was reaching exponentially more through local media exposure. Thanks to the interest of so many thoughtful local reporters, the green energy moon shot message was spreading.

I ended the day around sunset at a rest stop just outside the town of Smith Center where I had learned I could camp for free. With 72 more miles behind me, for a total of about 500 miles under my belt, I was now one-fifth of the way to Washington, DC.

My plan for the following day (it hadn’t yet dawned on me how utterly futile it was to try to make plans on an unsupported bike trek) was to try to make it 80 miles from Smith Center to the town of Concordia. But the breakfast crowd at Paul’s Cafe was curious and wanted to talk to me about a big wind energy project Smith County was hoping to develop, so I didn’t get out of there until mid-morning. After visiting the local newspaper, the Smith County Pioneer, I was just about to leave town when one of the locals I had met at breakfast pulled up in his pickup and asked if he could whisk me back downtown to meet the town’s Economic Development Director. It was an offer I was not about to refuse.

Lamenting her town’s economic decline and the slow drain of people leaving for opportunities elsewhere, Pam Barta shared with me more about the town’s hopes for the wind project: “We have a wonderful way of life out here and we’re hoping that wind power and green energy will bring something to rural America... we’re hoping in the long run that we’ll have some manufacturing that will provide the equipment that they need for wind farms… we’re excited about it. Kansas has a lot of wind and we’re going to put that wind to work.” Pam is right to be excited. As a state with some of the highest wind potential in the nation, Kansas has benefitted from more than $15 billion in private investments by the wind industry to date, resulting in thousands of new jobs. Nearly half of the Sunflower State’s electricity generation already comes from wind energy. And Kansas is just getting started.

After our fortuitous meeting, Pam spontaneously invited me to speak at their monthly Chamber of Commerce luncheon, where I gave my standard stump speech on the need for a U.S.-led green industrial revolution to combat the climate crisis. The talk seemed well received which was not surprising given the community’s interest in wind energy. Months of advanced planning on my part may not have granted me that audience with the Smith Center Chamber of Commerce, yet serendipitous synchronicity did.

Maybe it was the late start, or the miles just catching up to me, but once I was finally back on the road, I felt totally drained of energy. Every pedal stroke became a chore. I had “hit the wall.” After three and a half long hours of monotonous pedaling, I limped into the tiny town of Mankato hoping a good meal might boost my energy. After swinging by the local newspaper, I pedaled down an alleyway to a local bar, which I was told was the only place in town serving food. Little did I know how this pit stop would fuel me.

When the bartender saw my trike, she asked where I was headed. When I told her Washington, DC, she laughed out loud. When she asked when I expected to arrive, my answer–Thanksgiving–elicited a loud guffaw. Now it is certainly possible I misread her mocking tone in my fatigued state, but I took her laughter as a challenge. Quietly choking down my lunch of frozen fish sticks, French Fries and ice cream, I silently thanked her for the extra motivation I so desperately needed that day. Rolling out of Mankato, I busted through the wall and knocked out the next 30 miles in record time, with yet more encouraging hawk encounters (Hawks #8 and #9) along the way. It was a poignant reminder that sometimes help arrives in the most unexpected ways. Whether she intended it or not, that bartender was my angel for the day.

Deciding to call it quits in the town of Belleville, I inquired at a liquor store about places to sleep, grabbing a couple of beers to celebrate my progress. For fun, I kicked in the electric-assist motor and rocketed myself all the way to a campground on the edge of town, which was not only free, but had an outdoor shower. I took a long hot one while knocking back a cold one. Later while rehydrating a freeze-dried meal for dinner, I dialed up my dad to say hi before retiring for my nightly ritual of blogging and video editing. 64 more miles closer to my destination, I drifted off to sleep, happy to know that real rest and recuperation were just around the corner.

I woke with the sun the next morning, looking forward to a short ride day. After striking camp and loading up my saddlebags, I engaged the electric-assist motor and rocketed the two miles back into town, where I fueled up at a local diner. From there it was an easy 23 miles to Concordia for a long-anticipated meeting with Michelle and Bruce Graham, who a friend and former wind industry colleague had arranged for me to meet. Unbeknownst to me at the time, the Grahams were rolling out the red carpet.

Michelle, who worked for Horizon Wind Energy, had invited two local landowners affiliated with her company’s Meridian Way wind project to join us for lunch. Meeting us at a Chinese restaurant were burly, bearded Tom Cunningham (the first of many Toms I would curiously meet on my journey) and his petite wife, Carmen Lam. What started out as typical lunch counter banter quickly morphed into a deep discussion about the serious challenges facing our nation.

First Tom shared how he came to be involved in the wind project:

“Well, I’ve always been interested in wind power. However, as fate would have it, I was asked to sign up my land so that it could be developed for wind power... since I felt that wind power was going to be very important for the future of alternative energy, I was thrilled and felt I had an obligation to sign up, but then when I found out… I was actually going to make some money on it, I couldn’t believe my good fate.”

When I asked Tom for his views on the state of the planet, he replied:

“We’re in deep trouble.”

When I asked if he felt represented in Washington, DC, he said:

“Well, if we’re a corporation, I think we’re being very well represented. Chances are we probably have a lobbying firm, or several of them working in our interests. If we’re individual citizens, we have a much bigger problem because the only thing we have is votes and letters, which are not to be neglected, but they’re not nearly as powerful as a bag full of dollars or a smooth-talking lobbyist who can point out all sorts of benefits of voting in the way they prefer, even if those benefits are totally ethereal.”

When asked what he thought it would take to change all that, Tom predicted:

“Some really hard times.”

Still digesting Tom’s weighty words, I soon found myself at the base of a 100-foot-tall wind turbine, harnessing in for a climb to the top. Not many colleges in the U.S. can boast of owning their own wind turbines where students can get hands-on experience working on the towers. Cloud County Community College Wind Technology Center, where Bruce teaches, can. One of the nation’s first and largest certified wind technology schools, the college owns two 100-kilowatt machines.

After giving us the safety drill, Bruce ducked through the small door, followed by me, and then Michelle. Peering up, you could see light coming through a small round hole at the top. As we scurried up the 100-foot ladder inside the tower, our voices echoed off the hard steel walls. A third of the way up, there was a platform if you needed to rest. We didn’t. Two-thirds of the way up, there was another platform. We blew past that one, too. Popping through the hole in the steel floor at the top, I was surprised by how little floor there actually was. I expected a more substantial platform. The gaping hole provided a dizzying view to the bottom.

With the three of us crowded into the nacelle (the compartment at the top of the tower that houses the generator and associated gearing), Bruce opened an even smaller door to the outside and mentioned something about going out onto the service platform. Michelle said, “Oh, I’m not going out on this.” Then I asked Bruce, “Wait. You’re, you’re going out on this?” Incredulous, he said, “That’s what you wanted, wasn’t it?” How quickly we forget! Nervously trying to buy myself a little time, I said, “Well, yeah, but how we gettin’ out? Where’s the platform?” Pointing to a tiny ledge he said was 12 inches wide, but looked more like eight to me, he said, “Well, if you look, right there it is.” Bruce explained that turbine technicians do much of their work roped in and leaning back into thin air because they need their hands free, to which I responded, “Those guys are fearless, man. Fearless.”

I wasn’t, but it was too late to turn back now. Laughing nervously, I clipped into the safety line and swung my left foot out onto the narrow ledge, followed by my right. Then I shuffled a few feet over to take in the incredible view. For someone who is not particularly fond of heights, I sure had a good time standing out there on that precarious ledge perched 100 feet off the ground. Something about being on top of that elegant machine just seemed to calm my nerves. Peering down, the rocket trike looked like a small toy. Peering up, I spied a small ladder going even higher that was used by intrepid wind technicians to tighten bolts. I wondered what it would be like climbing up there, but felt like I had gone far enough. After carefully making my way back into the safety of the nacelle, Bruce told me more about the machine we were sitting atop. He described how the electricity from their two turbines powers a geothermal system that provides all the heating and air conditioning needs of the Wind Technology Center campus. We talked about how every school in the nation with ample wind resource should own their own wind turbines.

Back on the ground, our next stop was the Meridian Way Wind Farm, where Michelle gave me a tour of the 201-Megawatt project. Consisting of 67 three-megawatt turbines, it was the largest installed in the U.S. at the time. Together, those 67 turbines generated enough green electrons to power 60,000 homes. Looking out over that army of towers dotting the plains as far as the eye could see, I remember thinking the United States needs many more wind projects like this–even larger–and we need them like yesterday. When I asked Michelle if there was anything she would like to share in terms of a renewable energy future for America, she said with a smile on her face: “100 percent by 2020 sounds good to me.”

I spent the next day holed up like a prairie dog in the Graham’s basement working on my blog and website, emerging from my den just long enough to join the family for locally-sourced, home cooked meals and to share the trike with curious relatives and friends of the family who dropped by to see it. Despite having known me for less than a day, the Grahams treated me like family. It reminded me of the adage that most strangers are just friends you haven’t met yet. The extraordinary generosity of the Grahams, and so many others I had encountered, is one of the things I love the most about America.

After dinner, the Graham’s teenage son Connor joined me in the garage to clean the trike. Watching us, Bruce bemoaned if only he could get the same kind of enthusiastic response from his son when his pickup truck needed detailing. Inside, Michelle and family friend State Representative Elaine Bowers were working the phones, lining up enough public talks and media interviews to keep me busy for the next couple of days. Two of the newspapers they called, the Concordia Blade-Empire and the Miltonvale Record, would end up running front-page stories on the ride.

In the morning, Bruce drove me to Cloud County Community College, which offers an Associate of Applied Science degree in Wind Energy Technology. There I spoke to three of his classes (students in the Wind Turbine Siting class were particularly interested in hearing about the American Wind Wildlife Institute). As a wind industry veteran, I was struck by the sophistication of their program. It was incredibly energizing to be engaging such highly motivated and informed students on the front lines of the renewables revolution. I made a point of emphasizing how important each of them was to the future of humanity. Not surprisingly, I received a lot of enthusiastic feedback on the green energy moon shot vision. People want to see the green industrial revolution happen, and they don’t want to wait.

The following morning, I gave a breakfast talk to the Concordia Optimists Club. I expected just a few people at the early hour of 7:00am, but a long table in the back room of the restaurant and a few surrounding tables were nearly full. Groggy without my morning jolt of caffeine, I muddled through my remarks before fielding some thoughtful questions from some of the assembled Optimists. I was then hustled over to the Chamber of Commerce for round two, but not before gulping down a couple cups of energizing joe. Entering a packed room, I was again graciously introduced by Representative Bowers, my standing tremendously boosted by the credibility she provided. Knowing I would probably never again have an opportunity to speak to this room full of Kansas business leaders, I made the most of my 15 minutes. Sitting at the large conference room table in my American flag bike jersey, I spoke straight from the heart about the economic challenges facing us as a nation and the benefits of America leading a green industrial revolution. As I reminded everyone how we answered the call of duty during World War II, a somber quiet enveloped the room. I then pivoted to talking about the dire climate challenges facing us, and our failing obligation to our children and grandchildren. This elicited several sober nods of agreement from those around the table. It felt like my message had struck a chord.

After a quick interview with a radio station on my way out the door, I said goodbye to my new Kansas friends and continued on my way. My next stop was Lincoln Elementary School in Clay Center, about 20 miles down the road, where a friend of the Grahams who teaches at the school had asked me to make a pit stop for some rocket trike show and tell. It was there that I would experience an emotional high point of the journey.

Rolling up to the front of the school, I could see the front doors bulging behind nearly 100 second-graders begging to be released. When the doors swung open, a tsunami of excited tykes swarmed the trike. After establishing a modicum of order, I spent the next half hour answering their questions, making clear what I was doing (protecting the planet) and why (for them). Not surprisingly, most of the questions were about the space age-looking trike, but their young minds also seemed to grasp my deeper mission. My heart melted when afterwards a little girl walked up and hugged my leg, silently looking up at me with a beaming smile of gratitude on her face. That one look made every pedal stroke worth it and redoubled my resolve to do everything in my power to secure her endangered future. Two days later, the local paper, The Clay Center Dispatch, got it right with their front-page story saying, “Rider visiting Lincoln wants to change the world.”

Rocketing from the school toward Manhattan, I got a call back from a reporter at the Salina Journal. Not wanting to be idling on the shoulder of the road when I could be putting more miles behind me, I did the interview as I pedaled. The resulting article that playfully dubbed me “Rocket Man” quoted Republican State Representative Elaine Bowers saying, “I admire his tenacity.” When asked for her reaction to the ten-year renewable electricity goal, she said, “Shooting high for a goal and getting close is better than setting a lower goal and reaching it.” If only more of our elected officials shared such an enlightened perspective.

By now, I had come to realize I was being guided by forces much larger than me. Nothing else could explain how doors kept opening for me right and left. The secret sauce was having no set itinerary, schedule, or route. Spontaneity allowed serendipity to just flow. It felt like I was in a dance with the divine. The steady stream of meaningful “coincidences” that had marked my journey thus far would ultimately come to define it. In his courageous book, Breaking Open the Head, the philosopher Daniel Pinchbeck writes: “[I]n shamanic cultures, synchronicities are recognized as signs that you are on the right path.” I clearly was. By trusting Spirit to guide me, and releasing expectations for how things should unfold, my journey had entered a hallowed state of being. From this serene state, I propelled myself forward, in full faith, knowing that everything was unfolding exactly as it should.

NOTE: The written form of WORLDFIRE is the authoritative version. Any inadvertent errors in transcribing the recordings are mine and mine alone.