This is a guest post by Lisa Temple, the Interactive Media Producer at Chabot Space & Science Center. She lives in San Francisco’s Mission District with her Husband, Trent, and her dog, Sam. That means her one-way commute is 20 miles. Eeep. Read on…

Howdy from the staff at Chabot Space & Science Center in the Oakland Hills! Chabot works to encourage students to actively address climate issues within the Bay Area community.  We’ll be dropping by ACE occasionally to share some interesting facts, zany stories, and conversations regarding climate change and how it all relates to you!

This is the story of a girl and her car. The girl is me: Lisa. The car is my 1997 Toyota Corolla, and don’t laugh, but her name is… Car.

Where I grew up—Detroit, Michigan—cars were the coolest. EVERYONE in my family worked for the Big 3 American auto manufacturers.

In my high school, every kid had a new car when they turned 16. I ALMOST did. I got to drive one of our company lease cars, but my mom wouldn’t let me call it “mine.”

That’s probably because one week after I first rolled out of the driveway in it… I crashed it.

Whew! What a lesson. Mom made me work pretty much the rest of my high school years to pay off the increase in her car insurance because her 16-year-old daughter put a big fat “failure to stop” ticket on her policy. Go me.

But hey – as lame as it made high school for me at times, I’m actually GLAD I learned that lesson. It’s probably why I became passionate about getting OUT OF—rather than INTO—my car.

When I was in college (and my debts to mean old mom were paid off), I got myself a car I could call “mine.” It was the most affordable and least-gas-guzzling car on the market in those days. And guess what?

Almost 15 years later, she’s STILL WITH ME.

In 2006, when Car was nine years old, she and I packed up and moved to California. She drove me across the Great Plains, over the Rockies, through the Salt Desert, over the Sierra Nevada… While carrying a WHOLE BUNCH OF MY JUNK. And she got over 30 MPG while doing it!

She had no idea my intention upon getting here was—GULP—to abandon her.

I know, I know… You think I’m a huge jerk right now. How could I do that to a car that had been so good to me? But I’d heard about this amazing thing called public transportation. Facts like, “households that use public transportation can save almost $10,000 every year”…[1] Maybe… just maybe… I could finally be free of the stress and cost of an automobile (even an affordable, non-gas-guzzler).

Well, unfortunately, my first job in California was here:

Nope. No buses to the Marin Headlands.

BUT… I discovered a whole community of people who ALSO wanted to get out of their cars!

I carpooled almost every day to the Marin Headlands. My bridge tolls over the Golden Gate went from $100/month to just $25. Poor Car grew lonely and a wee bit rusty, sitting parked in San Francisco’s Mission District.

A year ago, when I started working at Chabot Space & Science Center, I discovered that…

I once again worked in a crazy beautiful place!

I once again worked somewhere busses did not go!

Car smirked at me. By now she was sick of our farce of a relationship, and she delighted in creaking up the HUGE hill to Chabot, testing my faith in whether or not she could make it…

But more than ever, I was absolutely inundated with alternative ways to get to work! That’s because here at Chabot, we teach people about the impact their transportation choices have on the environment. And HOLY SMOKES. Did you know the average automobile emits SIX TONS of carbon dioxide into the environment every year? I found a new car pool buddy ASAP!