Mileage

My “new” car (ok, it’s used) has a nifty little trip computer that tells me how many more miles I have on the tank, as well as calculating the mileage for that tank. Yesterday afternoon, a few miles from our friend’s alpaca farm (the same one where we saw a cria being born last summer), we stopped for petrol, and I checked the trip computer: 31.5 mpg.

Of course, that doesn’t tell the whole story. A quick check of the map reveals that we traveled about 300 miles yesterday, yet we drove for only about four hours and used only one tank of gas. No, we weren’t incredibly fast, and the car doesn’t have an unusually large tank: nope, we took the ferry.

Our choice was based on several factors: flying is a hassle and produces a lot of carbon, and we’ve done so much this year (and have more to come) that we really wanted to avoid flying; the airfares for half-term break were obscenely inflated, even for discount airlines; and we very shallowly wanted to have our own car because a) it felt stupid to rent one when we had just bought two cars and b) we wanted to go to IKEA in the UK for a few items. This left us with the ferries.

Based on the distances, the Rosslare to Wales ferry looked to be the shortest route, and broke up the driving. High speed ferries are mothballed for the rough seas of fall and winter, so we opted for the big slow one. We booked it online, and yesterday, at the crack of dawn, set out for our sailing. As we waited to board, the sun rose over the Irish Sea.

To say the ferry is big is an understatement. With ten decks, half of them for vehicles, the thing was immense. There were a few families in minivans like us—we figure most got out of town Friday evening—but the main event was the trucks. Passenger cars were boarded in fifteen minutes, but the trucks kept coming aboard for over an hour.

And as we disembarked, a truck wove in front of us in slow motion: Polish registration, coming from Ireland, with “Täglich frisch!” (“Fresh daily!”) emblazoned on the side. Pictures of happy, crisp vegetables completed the illusion.

And that got me thinking. Now, we arrived in the UK just after noon. We had three more hours of driving ahead of us to make it to our destination this side of London: that truck however, would be on the road until bedtime just to make a ferry across the channel, with driving through the wee hours just to get to a German-speaking border. The south of Germany, Switzerland or Austria would easily add another 400 miles to the vegetable’s trip.

We were only a bit tired when we arrived, but we had had the chance to stretch our legs, eat two full meals and breathe fresh sea air on our trip: those carrots and leeks had no such opportunity. So, while we’re feeling fairly smart for having chosen the more pleasant journey, we have found our resolve to eat locally reinforced by a ferry trip.

On the final leg of our journey, just after the petrol station, was an organic farm stand. Fresh vegetables, fresh daily. No gallons or tons or miles involved.