Our Volksvegan Adventure

The first camping trip of the summer was amazing! The volksvegan made the trip beautifully – though I am really glad Sen was driving, because the little one-lane dirt road from Highway 1 to Usal campground is insane! It was a steep eroded road with huge ruts, tight switchbacks and loose gravel, and was really close to the edge of the cliff at some points. But boy was it an amazing view from the edge!

We packed up the volksvegan and followed our friends Pal & Ottie out to Usal. It takes about two hours from home, though it’s only about 60 miles or so. The volksvegan carried us up up up and then across a ridge along a steep cliff, then down down down into a big valley, overlooking Usal beach as we descended. When we got there, we easily found the campsite where our friends Mike & Kelsie and Rick & Paula were already set up. It was a fairly secluded site with lots of room for all 8 of us. We set up the pop-top quickly and then figured out how to put up the canopy that attaches to the side of the bus (it has been a while) before hopping on the bikes and heading to the beach. When we were almost at the beach, we stopped dead in our tracks: just ahead of us, near the side of the road, was a herd of HUGE elk. And we forgot the dog leashes at camp. So we headed back, got the leashes, and sped back to the beach in time to see watch the elk and check out the area. Apparently the elk that live there are one of the largest subspecies of elk in the world. They had huge fuzzy antlers and seemed totally oblivious to us. Good thing the pooches were leashed up so they couldn’t scare them away! Unfortunately my camera was acting up when we first got there and I didn’t get very good elk shots. 

We hung out with our closest friends all weekend, met the “neighbors” and brought them some midnight munchies (lots of fruit). We went for a hike up the ridge to an overlook where we could see the whole beach and had a close view of an osprey nest just above us on a dead tree. We also took another hike to a really crazy grove of redwoods. I have never seen redwoods like this before! They were gnarly, with huge trunks and branches that twisted and turned in all directions. The whole hillside was covered with them in one area, it made me wonder what made them grow that way. We spent a lot of time with one tree in particular (check out the picture at the top of this post), which looked like an octopus with tons of branches coming off a huge trunk. It was definitely a magical place!

We got to watch sunsets at the beach, cook big meals outside, and got lots of exercise biking and hiking around all weekend. We headed home after visiting the gnarly redwood grove one more time. The forest was teeming with life and lush. Juneau and Niko had such a blast running around, hiking with us, and playing on the beach. The Lost Coast is definitely a special place, we’d love to return soon and do the backpacking trip from Usal to Shelter Cove. It hardly felt like camping with our little home away from home – both pooches fit nicely in the bus with us and we were quite comfy!

It was a beautiful mini-vacation! You can see all the photos of the trip on flickr.

Next up for the volksvegan: Seneca and Pal will be heading to Hopland’s Solar Living Institute in the van in a little over a week, where they will learn how to make bio-diesel, create a processor, and learn how to run a bio-business. Hopefully they’ll learn enough to start producing fuel for ourselves and gradually build a client base from there. It’s exciting that we’re finally moving forward with a business and becoming a bigger part of the biofuel revolution! Stay tuned for notes from the course.

Long time no update! Where do we begin? The volksvegan recently had some major work done on her (again!) after we broke down in Grant’s Pass, Oregon on our way up to the barter faire in October. Luckily, we found a shop there to work on her while we rented a minivan for the faire. It wasn’t quite the same without our beloved van, but we still had a great time and sold lots of t-shirts, soaps, and jewelry at our booth. Seneca put in new glow plugs and clutch parts recently, so she’s running like a champ once again. We also had the injector pump rebuilt with synthetic seals so that biodiesel won’t be able to cause any more problems or clog the injection system.

After putting so much time and money into the volksvegan, we aren’t sure if we want to continue running such an experimental fuel. So for the time being, we’re sticking to biodiesel rather than wvo. It’s sad that this technology hasn’t been perfected enough to make it viable yet, but the engine is just too finicky (and expensive) to make it worth it for us to continue using grease. We’re now looking into ordering biodiesel from a local collective, and eventually making our own biodiesel from waste veggie oil!

And now for the big news: we are the proud new owners of another Volkswagen! We recently got a 2009 Jetta TDI named Loretta the Jetta! We had been looking for something to replace our little Ford Escort that had been racking up miles, and wanted another car that could run on biodiesel that was more efficient for short trips and everyday driving. After doing some research, we found that the most efficient diesel vehicle on the market was the VW Jetta TDI. Unfortunately, they are very difficult to find and waiting lists are common (I guess that’s a sign that they’re great cars) and the used ones were often more expensive than the new ones. But, with the help of my parents (thanks mom & dad!), Loretta was found in nearby Ukiah, and came home with us.

Loretta is spiffy, quiet, and boasts VW’s new “clean diesel” technology, which reduces 95% of all sooty emissions. The fact that Jetta TDIs can get up to 50 mpg and that a tax break was offered on the new diesels due to their efficiency and clean technology made Loretta impossible to resist. And even better, the ’09 Jetta TDI was awarded the Green Car of the Year award by Green Car Journal. She’s our dream car, and we love driving her on the curvy coastal roads of Mendocino.

Now that we have Loretta, we hope to save our ol’ volksvegan from racking up too many miles. We’ll mostly be using the volksvegan for trips when we need to haul large, heavy things (like when we move into a new place just up the road later this month) and when we go camping and to local festivals. There are certainly plenty of festivals around here where our little home away from home will come in handy! For everything else, we’re happy to have Loretta, and especially stoked about the great mileage she gets. So far we’ve been averaging in the high 30s in-town and the mid-40s on the highway. Look for Loretta zooming gracefully down Highway One!

Well, we’ve moved again. This time it wasn’t far. We are now in Mendocino Village, about 10 miles south of Fort Bragg. Mendocino is where we wanted to move when we first visited the area, so we’re really happy where we’re at now. The town is historical and really cute, and we’re right up the hill from town, just a short walk or bike ride away. While we no longer have redwoods on the property where we live, we do have an ocean view, plenty of sunshine, and lots of room for an organic garden!

The volksvegan has taken us on a few small adventures this summer. We went to Sierra Nevada World Music festival for a day, and Reggae Rising for a day. It sure is nice to be able to roll into a festival, pop the top and have a cozy home base to camp in. We haven’t taken the bus on any long road trips this summer though, because she needs a bit of work. The glow plugs have burned out again (grrr!) and the muffler still needs to be replaced with a heavier duty one that won’t fall apart. We’re hoping to have her fixed in time for Okanogan Family Faire in October, where the bus makes a great camping spot as well as a vending booth (thanks to our canopy that attaches to the side), and we also plan to go to Earthdance a little closer to home.

We finally found a grease source nearby! A sushi restaurant in Fort Bragg has agreed to let us collect their waste veggie oil. Now we need to get a new barrel and test out our filtration system. We are very excited about this, because it has been difficult to find restaurants that didn’t already give their used oil to a greaser! California has a lot more veg-oil powered cars than Idaho. That’s a good thing, but it makes used oil harder to find. With the price of diesel and bio-diesel lately though, jugs of virgin veggie oil from Costco might be cheaper!

We are also dreaming about Volksvegan II, a second bio-powered VW we hope to get. We’d like to sell our small gas car and get a newer VW Jetta TDI. We use the small car to run errands that are too far to ride or walk, and to visit our community garden plot and friends in Fort Bragg. Jetta TDIs get great gas mileage since diesel engines are more efficient, and they’re bio-diesel ready. There is a bio-diesel collective about an hour from us that delivers large quantities, so with two Volksvegans we might use enough to warrant having it delivered.

We love our new home. The Mendocino coast is full of like-minded and eco-conscious people. I see Priuses everywhere, organic gardening is popular, and there are many great local environmental organizations. We’ve been going to a drum circle on the beach every Friday, making new friends, growing organic food in the community garden, and spending lots of time outdoors in the redwoods and on the beaches. I’ve found a tree-hugger’s paradise. So despite my urge to travel in the volksvegan, I don’t think we’ll be going too far for a while.

It was difficult for us to leave the beautiful Mt. Shasta (the mountain of course, but the town was awesome as well). From there we went to Lassen Volcanic National Park, an active volcanic area that last erupted in 1915. We climbed Lassen Peak, the volcano that erupted and the highest point in the park at just over 10,000 feet. The geology was really interesting and the top of the peak was a craggy maze of lava rock towers and snow-covered mud.

We then hiked to a place called Bumpass Hell, named after the guy who discovered it and then lost his leg stepping through the crust into boiling mud. It reminded us of Yellowstone, a bubbling, steaming, sulfuric display of earth’s extremes. After being on Mt. Adams and Mt. Shasta, both volcanoes in the Cascade Range and part of the “Ring of Fire” along with Lassen National Park, it was a cool way to end our volcanic experience.

From Lassen we went through Redding to Arcata. We visited Arcata and Redwood National Park a few years ago on our first road trip together, so it definitely brought back memories. We found some yummy pizza, then checked out a bead and crystal shop where we talked to the guy working there for a while. Of course we had to head to the Co-op, which is the biggest grocery store in downtown Arcata.

In Arcata we found a gas station selling B99 Biodiesel (99% Bio/1% Diesel). We have normally only found B5 – B20 while on the road, so this was quite a surprise. We had to get some regular diesel as well as bio because we don’t have viton seals in the bus yet. Biodisel erodes the natural rubber seals in the injector pump of older diesels. So we tend to stick to B20.

We camped North of Arcata at Patrick’s Point State Park, and in the morning after a rain we went down to Agate Beach to collect rocks and shells. Then we headed to the disc golf course on Humboldt State University, which was overgrown with redwood trees and very confusing. From there we stopped by the park near campus and ran into our friend Hallie, who we knew in Moscow and hadn’t seen for a long time. We caught up with her, swapped road stories, and then parted ways as the sun went down below the trees. Our last stop in Arcata was for pizza, then we got a quick beer at Lost Coast Brewery in Eureka on our way south.

We camped along the way down Highway 1, a gorgeous and windy drive along the ocean. We had breakfast looking over a cliff into the Pacific, and stopped at a random beach access route that led to a nice little cove with a private beach. We played in the waves and collected shells and beach glass. Juneau had never played in the ocean before, and he was pretty wary of the waves. From the coast we turned inland, and the road was lined with towering redwoods. We drove through a tunnel of forest that gradually opened up to open vineyards, a little pocket of Northern Cali wine country. We stopped in Boonville to visit a friend and checked out Anderson Valley Brewery, which also had a disc golf course. There has certainly been a lot of brewery visits and disc golf on this trip!

From here we hope to go to Yosemite and Sequoia National Parks, then head back up North for the Okanogan Family Faire. Hopefully some other faires and events will be along the way. Stay tuned…

Thanks to Green Options, I found out about a great new site for people running on veggie fuel that need help finding friendly restaurants with grease to spare. It is called 100th Grease Monkey, and the aim of the site is to create a database of restaurants offering grease for fuel to traveling “Grease Monkeys” like us! The database is just getting started, but I’m excited to see this project grow. It certainly would come in handy for a WVO-fueled road trip!

Here’s some info on the idea behind the 100th Grease Monkey site:

The story of the “Hundredth Monkey Effect” originated with Lyall Watson in his 1979 book Lifetide, in which he claimed to describe the observations of scientists studying macaques on the Japanese island of Koshima in 1952. Some of these monkeys learned to wash sweet potatoes, and gradually this new behavior spread through the younger generation of monkeys—in the usual fashion, through observation and repetition. However, according to Watson the researchers noted that once a critical number of monkeys was reached—the so-called hundredth monkey—this previously learned behaviour instantly spread across the water to monkeys on nearby islands.

What does all this have to do with veggie vehicles? Well, the hope of this website is to launch the “Hundredth Monkey Effect” in regards to veggie fuel. If enough people visit this website and enough restaurants choose to be included in our database, we hope to reach a level of awareness that changes society on a fundamental level. All we need is a few more grease monkeys to reach that critical point. So please, spread the word and help us reach that ever so important 100th Grease Monkey!

Go Grease Monkeys, go!

And as for an update on the bus, she’s running, but not too reliably. I drove her around town this weekend and she had trouble starting at first, but after one run she did just fine and started up each time I tried after that. We are planning to put in a new Turbo Diesel engine (or TDI) before we do any major trips. This ol’ engine just isn’t working well and we know we’ll need to upgrade eventually, so we might as well get a reliable engine in her sooner rather than later. It will be nice when we have an engine that is powerful enough for the size of the bus (the 1.6 L diesels just aren’t enough to move a big bus up hills), and we have a friend who will help with the installation, so now we just need to find a new engine that will last us a while. Drop me a line if you know of any good resources for finding newer TDs or TDIs!

I was looking around online and ran across some fellow greasers. Some folks are so dedicated, they’ve made entire sites sharing their knowledge. They sound pretty darn smart to me, but then again I am not good with the mechanical/technical side of this stuff! Check out some fellow “greasers” and bio-fuel bio-neers!

Vegd VW: Learn how Dave converted his cars to run on Waste Vegetable Oil.

The Fry Guys show you how they converted their cars and have plenty of useful tips.

Dreamer Propulsion: learn how one greaser converted a Mercedes300D.

Veggie Caravan is a non-profit group who tours in veggie-fueled buses promoting alternative energy and sustainability.

David Henri tells the story of converting his 1981 VW Rabbit in this article.

I could go on listing quite a few groups and individuals who have converted their vehicles, and the internet is a main source of information for the bio-fuel community. Since WVO conversions are still rather “underground” and definitely a DIY-project, the free-speech zone of the Internet is a great place for individual greasers to share their stories and find information. Feel free to comment with other conversion stories or the sites of fellow greasers!

I will be making the maiden voyage in the newly-converted greasecar this weekend! I’m going down to McCall to show off the bus to my parents, who used to own a very similar one. It’s going to be about 400 miles round trip, and Seneca anticipates that I should be able to make the whole trip on one full grease tank, about 15 gallons. This will be a test to see if the miles per gallon on grease are better or worse than regular diesel, on which we get about 30 MPG. Most “greasers” say they get similar or slightly better mileage on grease, so we’ll see. I will be hitting some mean hills though, with the itty bitty 1.6L engine I’m sure it will be slow. But it’s a great way to test out the grease system. The only thing I’m nervous about is that Sen isn’t coming with me, so I just hope we have no car troubles. Send me & the Volksvegan some good vibes for a safe trip!

We have now secured 3 regular sources for waste oil. We also found out who our competition was, there are a number of locals who make bio-diesel out of wvo, and they have set up agreements with the biggest restaurants with the best grease. So that sucks, but maybe they can learn to share. Until then, we get about 5 gallons a week from each of our three sources, although the timing on 2 are a little irregular. That should more than cover our in-town driving, since we rarely drive and do most errands by bike. We really want to get a stockpile saved up for road trips though. We’re taking the bus to a barter fair September 9-10 and another much farther one the second weekend in October. I’m excited to finally be taking some veggie-fueled trips, and the bus is perfect for barter fairs since we can camp out in it and set up a canopy on one side of it to use as a booth. I sell and barter with handmade gemstone jewelry and herbal soap & massage oil at the fairs.

Tomorrow we collect more grease (I’ll try to get pictures this time) and take the bus into the shop to have the belts replaced and hopefully get our temperature gage fixed. The temperature gage stopped working, and it’s pretty important, so if they can’t fix it we might have to take our maiden voyage a week later.