By John DeFore
Green Right Now
The old-fashioned American road trip — packing the kids up and driving from one motor lodge to the next — may seem less than 100% wholesome these days, what with eco-conscious drivers becoming as sensitive to the amount of CO2 they’re generating as they are to cries of “are we there yet?” from the back seat.
But getting out into the natural world remains one of the best ways to introduce children — and city-dwelling adults, for that matter — to the environment we all want to preserve. And a well planned road trip can provide vacationers with an array of views and experiences that’s stunning enough to make a phrase like “ecosystem diversity” suddenly sound like a tangible good worth fighting for instead of a dry academic concern.
The tale begins like this. Once there was a wild and foreboding territory called the American West. The land stretched far and the big bad (some would say awesome and beautiful) wolves were plentiful, numbering in the tens of thousands. But the pioneering spirit was turning the wild landscape into ranches and towns, railroads and highways. The buffalo and the elk were in retreat. And then, it was the wolves’ turn. Deprived of their natural prey, they turned to sheep and cattle and confronted a fierce foe, an enemy with guns. 