Final Mileage

The final mileage for the trip was 13,815 miles, completed on only 14.696 gallons of petroleum diesel fuel.

This means we completed the trip on about 97.6% biofuels (2.4% petroleum fuels).

I tried making a map on Google maps containing a point for each place we stopped overnight or more, but there is a limit on how many points you can put on a single map (I found the limit at Los Angeles). So, here is part 1 of the final trip map (Madison, WI to Los Angeles, CA):












And here is part 2 (Los Angeles, CA to Indianapolis, IN):













Google Maps' total for the trip (this number doesn't include all the in-city and exploration driving) was 10,025 miles. This means we drove about 3,790 miles above and beyond the basic trip requirements.

I did a little math based on the numbers on this EPA web page, and I've figured that we prevented the release of 6.5 tons of CO2 from petroleum sources into the air (or about 585 gallons of petroleum diesel).

A note on this number: I didn't include the amount of petroleum used in making and transporting the VegOil and biodiesel. But, I also didn't include the petroleum used in making and transporting the petroelum diesel I would have used otherwise. I purposefully ignored this level of detail.

1 month, 100 posts

Hello everyone! We've just reached the one month point. Here are some highlights of the trip...

So far, we have taught approximately 430 primary school students and 20 fighter pilot and WSO students. We have also talked to numerous strangers, friends, and even a few dogs about biofuels.

We have traveled through 13 states, driving 3948 miles, using only 14.969 gallons of petroleum diesel, and we've paid $175 for fuel so far (biofuels and petroleum combined).

Since we get 25 miles per gallon, that works out to 90.5% of our trip on biofuels (this is skewed low due to the fact that we have a full tank of biodiesel. Don't worry - as we go along, that number will drop, but so far, we are meeting our goal of 90% biofuels.

Out of 30-ish nights on the road, we have spent 1 in a motel, 1 in a campground (last night), 1 was paid for by Mary's residency program, 3 on Sacha's Marriott points, and the rest have been on the couches of our many extremely generous (and far-flung) friends and family. Heartfelt thanks to each of you for helping us make this trip a reality - you are the reason we are able to complete this trip.

We've also reached our 100th post to this blog.

Thanks everyone who is following along - we appreciate it immensly.

Please also note that we have been away from reliable internet for the past few days, so our blog posts have been slow - we'll get better, we promise!

We have (finally) uploaded photos from our talks in Goldsboro, NC - see the gallery here:

Vegetable Oil Road Trip Schools

Lies, damn lies, and statistics

The most important thing I ever learned was to never believe any graph with only a few data points.

...In completely unrelated news, here are the statistics for our humble website and blog for December and January, as measured by Google's adsense (adsense impressions) and the vegetableoilroadtrip.com webserver (visits and hits). So, by looking at this painstakingly assembled graph, you can see that we're off to a great start.


















Also, our video, posted to youTube, has been viewed 214 times since January 7.

Anyhow, thanks for tuning in - and please keep watching - we have several pending announcements for early February that will make our whole trip more interesting.

Until then,

Sacha

PS: I promise that the next post will not contain graphs, bar charts, pie charts, logarithmic scales, or any other data-visualizing device.

Sightseeing with Mary

The best part of traveling is exploring the sights, sounds and tastes of new places. As we learn about new things explore, I will document them here. We have already heard about several interesting sites from friends and will begin to post them. They range from good food to structural feats to vegetable oil fuel landmarks. We hope that you will join us and also contribute suggestions for us to sample along our trip.

Please email us your travel tips.
Contact us

Destinos

So, here is the list of people and places we're currently planning on visiting around the country (with approximate dates):

• Cleveland, Ohio to see Jen (3/27)
• Boston, Massachusetts to hang out and eat at the hospital (3/29)
• New Haven, Connecticut to hang out with Betsy (4/2)
• Dover, New Jersey to see Harry (4/5)
• I'll fly to Austin for the weekend for Carrie's wedding
• New York, New York to see C. in the Village (4/10)
• D.C. to see Angela and N. (4/13)
• Norfolk, Virginia to see Dirk (4/17)
• Raleigh, North Carolina to visit O. (4/20)
  
• Charleston, South Carolina to visit Karen's brother (4/23)
• Savannah, Georgia to visit Lynn (4/24)
• Someplace on the gulf coast in Florida for a few days of beach (4/26)
• New Orleans, Louisiana to see a place I've never been (4/28)
• Lake Charles, Louisiana to eat etouffe and gumbo with Tyler's family (4/30)
• Austin, Texas to visit Carrie (again!) (5/1)
• Dallas, Texas to visit family (5/3)
• El Paso, Texas to eat some good Mexican food (5/4)
• Albuquerque, New Mexico to visit Corina, Erik, and many more people (5/5)
• Flagstaff, Arizona to see the Grand Canyon (5/11)
• Las Vegas, Nevada to... well do whatever one does in Las Vegas (5/15)
• San Francisco, California and surrounding areas to drink wine and visit with Rita, Bryan, Sarah, Anna, and many many more people (5/17)
• A week of camping up the Northern California Coast to Oregon and Portland will finish off the trip on 5/31!

So, all my friends, tell me if these dates are good, bad, or indifferent. And in places where I don't have someplace to stay, do you have a friend with a comfortable couch?

I can't wait to see you all!

Goals

My goals for this website:

• Have fun
• Educate
• Make money

Have fun. That's easy: I want to have fun. Most people's lives (including mine) are pretty boring, this website is one of several steps I'm taking in my life to have more fun doing what I want to do instead of what other people want me to do.

Educate. I'm driving across the country in a car that, when running on vegetable oil, emits a net of 0 pounds of carbon per mile, and sends $0 per mile to middle eastern dictatorships. I love my country and I love the environment. Everyone could and should do this, but they don't, mostly because they don't know how easy and economical it is to do, so I want to help educate.

Make money. That's right, I won't lie to you: I'm a capitalist. Travelling 4,000+ miles over 2 months when I have no income will be very expensive, no matter how cheaply I can get my veggie oil. If you would like to advertise here, would like to set up a sponsorship (I'm willing to put company logos on the car, visit you on my way across the country, give your website photos, etc), or simply would like to donate some money to keep things moving in the right direction, please contact me at: (vegetableoilroadtrip at gmail daht com).

Entry #1

Welcome to the vegetable oil road trip!

This is my inagural posting, so I will explain what I'm doing here. In the spring of 2007, We will embark on a trip from Madison, WI to Portland, OR in my vegetable oil powered 1982 Mercedes Benz 300TD. Here's where things begin to get interesting: We're going the long way. Starting in Wisconsin, we will drive East towards New York City, turn South and drive along the East coast, then we'll turn West at Georgia, drive West along the Gulf Coast and through the Southwest to the Grand Canyon and Los Angeles, and then we'll turn North along the West Coast until we reach Portland, OR.

So far, so good, right? There are a few more caveats: I want to make the trip with at least 90% of the 4,000+ miles driven on waste vegetable oil, therefore greatly limiting the environmental impact of my trip. This means I need good sources of waste vegetable oil all around the country.

There are of course practical limitations when travelling with two people in this car - the veg oil tank sucks up a lot of trunk space, so space is at a premium. Since we'll be camping a lot, that means all our gear needs to be very small and (for my back's sake) very light.

All these problems appeal to my geeky, DIY side, so in the months leading up to the trip, I will be completing several projects that I hope you will find helpful and interesting.

Some of my upcoming and ongoing projects:

• Portable vegetable oil filtration system
• Ultralight camping gear (tent, pack, stoves)
• Mercedes Benz Turbo Diesel maintenance and repair
• Funding my trip (selling a lot of my personal possessions)
• Finding waste vegetable oil sources along my planned route
• Finding a moving company to move all our things to Portland and store them for two months+ until we find a place to live.

Once the trip is underway, I will have loads of pictures, travel information and stories for you.

I realize that most of these are well-covered topics, but I hope to be able to combine these topics in a new, more useful ways that may assist people in achieving their own travel goals.

Some advanced projects I may attempt:

• An automated system to switch to vegetable oil when engine temperature has reached a pre-determined temperature. This system will also perform a timed purge of the engine on shutdown. I'd like to use an Arduino or Basic Stamp controller to accomplish this task.
• An in-vehicle navigation system (probably just my powerbook and a GPS receiver).

So, please join us as we embark on this exciting journey. I hope to have a lot of fun, learn a tremendous amount, and see this wonderful country!