Day Four: Off the Grid in New Orleans

Sorry to be late posting an update, but I've spent all day today trying to get back to Boston on US Air. Would have been easier in the Vegginator.

Our challenge on Sunday was to take pictures of as many state and provincial license plates as possible. The route was all interstate today, and we wanted to get to New Orleans in time to pick up our veggie oil resupply and get to the hotel to log our points in by 7:30 PM and catch the awards cermony at 8 PM.

The start had all of the beater BABE cars bombing down the interstate, passing each other and snapping license plates. Good fun. We ended up bagging 37 states and provinces, with our best hauls coming from U-Haul rental sites and truck stops. Dept. of Homeland Security might have raised an eyebrow or two, as we were slowly driving around the trucks snapping pictures.

It was a sobering ride into New Orleans on I-10, seeing the abandoned apartment complexes and houses on the side of the road. Kent and Richard had more of a chance to look around New Orleans, but just from the little bit I saw it hit hard. It's all so very sad.

The day's notable feature, and a big overall trip highlight, was visiting a fellow in New Orleans with a tremendous spirit, excellent handyman skills, a generous heart and 2.2 acres of property to play with. He lives close to the city center, and even without flooding he experienced $50,000 of damage during Katrina. There is no obvious evidence of the hurricane at his place now, nearly two years on.

Mandy the GPS found his compound with less than a gallon of veg to spare. We had done the trip on about 75 gallons of veg. and 1/2 a tank of diesel (used mostly for getting the engine warm at the beginning of the day, and shuttling to and fro the auto parts store during our Day 1 & 2 repairs).

Our kind friend was puttering in the backyard when we arrived, gave us a warm welcome and started showing us his set-up. We'll get some pictures up soon, but highlights of the tour included his massive truck and trailer with an old propane tank in the back for free restaurant veg. oil pickup, his shed with clever filtering and dewatering systems (including parts of an old air conditioner and a hot water tank), and the piping back to the four 250-gallon storage tanks of clean veg. He gave us about 60 gallons of filtered fuel and wouldn't let us pay a dime for it -- he enjoys the travellers that stop by with their wacky set-ups, and generously offers to refuel.

His goal is to go off the grid completely. He's getting a sound-proofed diesel electric generator up and running, and he's bought a bio-diesel set up. This will allow for conversion from veg. oil to a fuel that will go directly into a diesel tank, with no need for pre-warming. His wife's VW will be the first recipient of the bio-diesel.

The Vegginator was a real novelty on the rally and on the road, but I think we'll look back in a few years and realize that what we experienced on this trip was part of the quaint start of an energy revolution. Recycled, renewable non-fossil fuels will become commonplace, and these pioneering efforts to run on vegetable oil will be like the initial experiments with automobiles over a 100 years ago. In fact, flying home today I read in the paper about a company that has contracted with something like 400 restaurant chains to collect waste vegetable oil for a biodiesel plant planned for the NY/NJ area. Pretty soon, we will go from restaurants having to pay to have their waste oil taken away to getting paid to get rid of it. Going beyond recycling to mass production will raise its own thorny problems in terms of the food supply and risk of deforestation. Recycling waste veggie oil is an easy first step.

I hope everyone reading this will one day be able to say, "believe it or not, there was a time when running a car on something other than fossil fuels was remarkable."

After tasting an orange from the orchard it was time to give thanks, say our goodbyes and head to the French Quarter. We decided to switch to diesel as it was a long stop and the new veggie oil was coming in cold. We were so thrilled by our visit that we forgot to switch off the return back to the veggie tank in time, and for the first time we had some overflow in the trunk. We noticed a pungent oil smell, and thought it was because the new oil was from a different source. Actually, it was sloshing around in the trunk. Gross.

We pulled into the festive Quarter and met up with Richard's daughter Rachel, who is going to travel with him in the Vegginator back to Boston (road trip!!!), as she has a bit of time before her summer job starts up in Acadia National Park. I logged in our points before the deadline, while Rich and Kent cleaned up the trunk. The BABE cars made quite a stir, as the stretch limo pulled up with the BABE-ites in full prom regalia. Martini motored in with the Union Jack flying and the festivities began.

The first award was for the most-beat car, which went to the '71 VW Bus driven by team #47. Among their many colorful moments was the Day Four detachment of the camper top from the bus, with the top almost flying off of the bus at speed. They were proud of their "victory," and want to bring an even older VW bus next year.

We haven't seen the full standings, but I sadly must report that the Greasers were not on the podium at the end. The winning teams had hundreds of more points (thousands?) than we did, some how. Today the big points winners drove around the parking lot at the airport and bagged a bunch of obscure plates, totalling as many as 45+ state license plates. The awards ceremony was good fun, and we then broke for dinner and hanging out in the Quarter.

There was a great spirit on the rally, and I want to give a big THANK YOU to my teammates for all of their work both getting us ready and throughout the trip. Martini said, "it's funny, you grow up with your best mates, you'd do anything for them, they're like brothers, but after a few days in a car with them you want to wring their necks." And yes, the Greasers had one or two tense moments, but overall I thought we did great for three sweaty guys with no air conditioning, bombing through the mountains and the swamps with a pile of vegetable oil in tow.
Tip 'o the hat to my fellow Greasers -- I very much enjoyed the ride and thanks for taking me along. I can only imagine what you are going to come up with next year...