Tuesday, February 27, 2007

Before we invented climate change, it was acid rain

This is the only four-wheeled vehicle I've ever owned. It was ten years old when I bought it. I needed it to get to work during one of the summers I worked as a naturalist in Gatineau Park, when I was a student. (I lived in downtown Ottawa, and the park office was about a 20-minute drive away).


My fellow interprète/naturaliste Anne and I were stars of the tiny stage in the woods up at the Lac Philippe campground. We created a show that presented a (no doubt) thrilling yet educational lesson about the things we could all do to prevent the deterioration of the environment. Our show combined live action with slides, and this photo was taken to illustrate the benefits of carpooling. We enlisted several of the office staff, as you can see. (That's me peering out of the window from the back seat.) I don't know if Anne is in the car or if she took the photo.

I loved that car! VW Rabbit GTI, the sporty 5-speed model. Until the clutch started to go, then it wasn't so sporty, and I started taking the backroads to work because the car couldn't maintain highway speed on the uphill portion of the route (Highway 5 ?). I wonder how environmentally friendly that car was?

This photo was taken a long time ago, and I remember it, but thought I had lost it. So I was happy to find it in my box of old stuff. Anne and I had such a fun and memorable summer.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

So about acid rain, did it go away? Get better? Not really exist the way we were told it did? I'm so confused.

Funky car. I coveted my school chum's VW GTI.