I'm Major Jackson and this is the Slow Down.

Road trips appeal to the pleasure seeker in me.

My wife and I are considering a cross-country trip this summer and celebration of our

10th anniversary.

I am mostly excited.

I've made the journey several times in my life.

I love the country's varied landscapes all and one long take.

The unspooling of its sublime beauty through the car's windshield, jagged white peaks of

the Rockies, California's majestic Sequoias, the swampy river parishes of Louisiana.

I find inspiration in the isolation and charm of rural spaces in Maine and stately forest

flanking the Columbia River Gorge in Washington.

The dazzling architecture in Boston's back bay exhibits a bygone Victorian splinter.

Journeys of this kind are multisensory.

I value culinary adventures and customs unfamiliar to my own and not least of which the

joys of strangers.

People define a place, but especially so when they convey regional humor, local warmth,

and a vibrant spirit delivered in an accent new to the ear and heart.

And tell me, is there anything more appealing than that sense of freedom embodied and setting

off to destinations unknown, all while immersed in the natural beauty of the land, and the

character of its inhabitants, yet for all of my deep appreciation and express romance

of road travel, I'm worried about the carbon footprint of our trip.

With greenhouse gas emissions as they are, we are wholly bound to find solutions to the

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