Winter WVO- O No, O Yes!

It’s been a mild winter so far here in VT- last week (mid January) we had temperatures in the upper 30’s. However, right before we left to visit Philly for Christmas, we had been having subzero temps. The Beast was feeling it especially on the cold mornings at 6 am when we had to start her up to get Amy into Montpelier for her babysitting gigs. For the most part, “Kali” cooperated, but not without putting up a fight, she was angry and hating it. Since the house on the property is solar powered, we are unable to plug the truck’s block heater in overnight; in fact we can’t even plug it into the house at all because it drains the house batteries too quick. So our solution was to wake up 2 hours before we had to leave and plug it directly into the generator and run it until go time. This seemed to get her warmed up, and we were able to get Amy to Montpelier. We didn’t bother trying to run her on the vegetable oil, our ride to the city was a bit too short, and we didn’t want to take chances. So we had to buy some diesel (VT has treated winterized diesel) and some diesel additive to aid the cold starts.

Moses Lake

Before slowing our pace in Missoula for three days, we treated ourselves halfway there to a night at a trucker’s motel in a faithful town called Moses Lake. Here, aside from stepping out for a short walk to see the nearby lake reflecting the setting sun, we needed to give some attention to the Truck. Actually, it was the veggie oil system that was out of order. We were continuously blowing out fuses in the pump that we use to pull oil from restaurant bins and then to fill our tank with. Jon went to work as Inspector Gadget, and after blowing about three additional fuses he found some crossed wires! Picking up another fuse, the pump was working again and more oil was filtered into the tank for tomorrow’s drive.

Eugene, Oregon

Totally last minute, we wrote to couchsurfers in Eugene, OR the day we were leaving Melissa’s. On our way there, we received a phone call from one of the couchsurfers girlfriend saying his place was full, but she could host us still. We got there late, which she had generously said would be fine with her, and met up at her place. We hung out chatting for a bit with Holly and Richey, and they were rad.

Gainesville – Gators, Grease, and Gift Gardens

While in Charlottesville, we met Connie’s lovely friend Jamie, and she told us that we could contact her friend Beth if we passed through Gainesville on our way to Clearwater. So we did just that, and Beth kindly agreed to have us spend a few nights at her place. Unfortunately, we never met her husband, who was away, but we were more than happy to meet their awesome dog, Murphy! Beth was a wonderful host and great company. The night we arrived, she made an amazing vegetarian dinner… YUMMM! And she also informed us that there was a volunteer opportunity the following day with FOG – Florida Gift Gardens. Florida Gift Gardens builds free raised-bed vegetable gardens for underserved and low-income Alachua County, Florida residents and the institutions that serve them, helping them become more self-sufficient and increasing their ability to provide for some of their own food needs.

The Beast Needs Grease

Ironocally when we arrived in Athens, our host Abby had been working on this great drawling of Kali and her roomate John was writing a report on her… Anyway, the black beast has been running pretty well. We seemed to be loosing a little coolant somewhere so a rather easy DIY gasket placement in the thermostat housing seemed to do the trick (thanks Kearin for spotting that for us). We have been running on grease from Philadelphia to Charlottesville to Asheville, Athens and about halfway to the meditation center in Jesup, GA. Unfortunately in Asheville, Blue Ridge Bio-Diesel has the waste veggie oil market monopolized, so no luck collecting there, and only a few gallons discovered in Athens. Luckily diesel prices seemed to have dropped to about 2.25 a gallon down here. I think our best luck is going to be in more populated suburban areas and hopefully we can stock up in Florida.

Buckets of Grease

Saturday, while making a run to the health food store Amy and I decide to stop into the Thai restaurant in the same shopping center to see what they can offer us in grease. First we went out back to check their grease barrel and all looked good. Out of curiosity we also checked a couple of other barrels from other restaurants in the same center. There was a dumpster from a pretty popular franchise stakehouse, which will remain nameless. Oh man, gross… first off there was some kind of piece of animal carcass sitting right on top and as you open the lid there was globs of gross grille grease and other various animal parts sitting on the screen. I peered into the dumpster and there was a tan foam floating on the surface of the grease. This is exactly the type of grease we have to avoid.

We Struck Gold! (eh, sort-of)

After a day or two of me hitting up a few places around the neighborhood and having no luck, I took Amy out with me to see if she could do some smoothing to get us some fuel. We hit up all Asian restaurant, most of them told us that they have a person that picks up their oil already. We explained that we we’re looking to take just a little to use in our truck and that we would take it for free, whatever they could offer. Still no luck, just confused faces when explaining that our truck runs on their used, dirty kitchen grease. So just as were heading back home, we decide to check out a place that I asked a couple of days before. This time we went out back, there were some folks from the kitchen hanging around. When we inquired about there grease they said “Go right ahead!” So… we’re like “awesome!”

Now again this is our first time collecting and using the filtration system so we had a couple of slight set backs…