Booze, Aquifers, and the Great 2018 Mountain Trip (Part I)

“She left here to find a fellow named Dee Boot in Ogallala.  She never even looked at her baby.” – Lonesome Dove

Our trailer.  Paint job by The Mrs. – it was either this or The Mystery Machine from Scooby Doo.  I hope that Paramount® doesn’t sue us . . .

Following are the results of my essential research related to this blog, as we went on a cross country field data gathering trip.  Or, if the IRS isn’t reading this, a vacation.  The whole “essential research” sounds way more tax deductible than “vacation” – though rumor has it that if only I could get a job in Congress, the FBI, or the Treasury Department is that paying taxes is a thing that you can safely ignore.

One of the joys of a cross-country camping trip is planning.  Our idea is to minimize the number of things that we’ll need to buy once we get there, since the closest place to our campground to buy anything is a convenience store that’s a 30 mile (243 kilometer) round trip, and their idea of good wine is Mad Dog 20/20®.

Pictured:  A beverage.  Not pictured:  A beverage that I would drink.  Photo CC 2.0 SA by Philosophygeek, via Wikimedia

I had heard through my daughter, Alia S. Wilder, that a forest fire had popped up along our route.  I checked the route the night before, and our usual route was indeed closed – the small fire had blossomed like Star Wars® into a huge dumpster fire.  Google® maps are nice, I could compare alternate routes and try to pick the best one.  The best (of all of our alternatives) took due south of the fire, but would add hundreds of miles and thus over three hours to our journey.  As the base journey was already over 12 hours, this makes for a very long car trip.

I told The Mrs. of our route change.  She groaned.  On a car trip that starts at 12 hours, each additional hour of travel feels like two.  Or three.  And since our fuel consumption (once we hooked up to the trailer) was roughly 3 gallons per mile, unless we towed a small refinery behind us, we’d have to stop for gas at lease every 120 miles, versus my normal 420 miles between stops.  During many a trip I’ve reminded my children that nobody has died of a burst bladder in the United States since 1923.  I don’t know if that’s a fact, but it sure sounds like one.  Pugsley, The Boy and I did one trip where we stopped . . . only when we needed gas or food, literally hours between stops.  Pure perfection from a Dad standpoint.

But we would stop every 120 miles on this trip – no more than two hours between stops.  While that is nice and bladder-friendly, it slows down the trip – each stop takes at least 10 minutes.  Also, pulling the trailer would limit our maximum speed, probably down to the trotting speed of a small horse.

With that sense of foreboding, knowing the trip would be fifteen hours or so, we set off.

Less than 10 miles from our house, a car drove by the camper and made the “Live Long and Prosper” sign from Star Trek®.  It was great.  A few hours later, a car also did this at 70 miles per hour, and nearly wrecked.  I’m thinking he thought it was really cool, nearly cool enough to die for?  Yes.  It’s that cool.

About two hours into the trip (after the first stop, or maybe even the second), The Mrs. looked at me and noted my pale blue shirt, bandana, aviator sunglasses, and hat (though mine is brown) and said . . . “You’re dressed like Sam Neill from Jurassic Park.”  I laughed.

Thankfully, no dinosaurs were injured during the writing of this post.

Then The Mrs. and I both had the same thought, namely the following video.  Even if you hate embedded videos, I highly suggest you give this one a shot.

 

If only I could play the flute that well . . .

Travelling is one way to see the world through different eyes.  One thing we noticed is the prevalence of center pivot irrigation as we drove into drier territory.  Center pivot irrigation?  What kind of sorcery is that?

A center pivot sprinkler.  Photo Credit:  The Boy.  He granted me a perpetual non-exclusive license to use this however I wanted in exchange for not abandoning him 300 miles from home.

Essentially, center pivot irrigation is a huge lawn sprinkler, up to (the largest I’ve seen) a half of a mile long, that rotates . . . around the center.  So, if you have a square mile of land, you could water a one mile circle of land with a single sprinkler.  Through the magic of mathematics, that’s about 78% of the square mile, but you don’t have to haul a 2500’ hose around – the sprinkler just keeps going ‘round and ‘round, irrigating whatever you decided to plant.  If I were a farmer, I’d plant whatever plant makes steak.  Because, as a vegan, steak is my favorite vegetable.  Especially medium rare.  Or, maybe bratwurst vines?

But back to irrigation (because it’s sooooo exciting).  Center pivot irrigation was invented in 1940, and allows farmers to grow crops in places that don’t have enough water for them (typically).  Even though there isn’t a lot of rain there, under the ground in the west, there are billions and billions of gallons of water in the Ogallala aquifer.  (Aquifer is a fancy name for an underground refrigerator where water is stored at 42˚F (-30˚C.)

Ogallala water thickness, via USGS via Wikipedia, CC-SA 3.0

By pumping water into the center pivot system, farming of really water intensive crops, like corn, is possible in areas that would normally be too dry.  This is awesome!  Technology makes life good for everyone – water from the Ogallala aquifer allows for the production of over $20 billion of food and cotton each year.  Thank you, Ogallala for the ribeye trees that you grow!

Ogallala depletion, via USGS (public domain)

But the Ogallala drains over time, and it can take up to 6,000 years to recharge.  In fact, the Ogallala is nearly gone in Texas (though it looks just fine in Nebraska).  I would make a joke that Texas sucks, but in this case it really does – it has sucked up the largest quantity of Ogallala water that hasn’t been replaced.  Places that used to be productive farmland are now turning back to dry land crops or cattle pasture.  Good news?  Corn in Nebraska for the next few thousand years . . .

One of the bigger pressures nowadays is to grow corn.  Why, is there a Dorito® shortage?  No.  Corn can be converted to ethanol.  Normally I’m for any production of ethanol, but in this case, they don’t drink it, they BURN it.  Heresy!

Here is a distillery where ethanol is made.  And then (sob) mixed with gasoline where it’s burned in car engines.  The Mrs. was pretty sure that despite that pesky bill of rights, that Homeland Security would not be happy about me posting a picture of an ethanol plant because of freedom or something.

Why are we putting all that corn into gasoline?

Is it cheaper?  No.   Not really – ethanol is “renewable” so that makes it awesome!  And since it’s renewable, we should pump down the Ogallala aquifer faster!

Let’s be clear – ethanol is mandated to be in gasoline NOT because it’s a government transfer payment to thousands of (voting) farmers by forcing a market for corn that wouldn’t exist.  It’s because it’s good for us.  Right?  I mean, ethanol will stop global warming, obesity, and, I am told, the eventual thermodynamic death of the universe through all useful energy being lost to entropy.  Go ethanol!

Here, however, is water that looks so inviting!  I would have buried my head in it and drank deeply, except I noticed that pesky sign.  Ruins all the fun.  Photo credit:  The Boy.

Next (in the series):  The Worst Convenience Store on Our Trip plus 151,000, The Mountains, An IHOP™ Tease and a Short Turn Radius, More Convenience Store Shenanigans, Ahab and Griswold