Moving on out

I'm out of Philly and have started my trip. Holy crap! Yesterday was a blur. I was living in a 4 floor walk up in University city. I made what felt like a hundred trips up and down the stairs packing up my car. The car was packed to it's limits. Thankfully I was able to store some of the things I won't need on the trip at friends and families houses.

It's amazing how a little bit of stuff can seem like a lot when you're living out of a car. 2 pillows turned out to be one to many. The veggie oil tanks sits in the truck where the spare tire was. I now keep my spare behind the passenger seat on the floor. To fill my veggie tank I need to have easy access to my truck. This means less stuff and an organized truck. I also want to keep 3 jugs of filtered veggie oil in my truck. Wow driving for free has really cut my space. But it's worth it. Who needs 2 pillows out on the road anyway. People do these kind of trips on motorcycles. I can definitely make it work.

I slept at my mom's house last night. Today I'll get dropped off at the Appalachian Trail. I've got all my gear and food. I'm excited, scared and can't believe it's all happening today. I'll be on the trail until Sept. 15. I will then wash up at my mom's and head off to Glacier National Park in Montana.

I will be sending daily updates to my new twitter account. mac_cheese. I think that's the easiest way for me to save battery and stay in touch. Hopefully my phone doesn't get wet or punk out on me in any way.

Vegetable Oil Runs a Car!

Today I filled my car up at a Japanese restaurant, so cool! The conversion is finished and operational. I just put my filter in a 5 gallon jug and poured the oil into the jug. I walked over to my car and filled my tank. This is actually going to work as I go cross country. I wasn't sure how I would make it work as I traveled until today. I have over 100 miles logged running completely on vegetable oil.

I went into the restaurant and asked if I could take their used oil. As I was taking the oil out of their big barrels everyone who worked at the restaurant keep coming out back to look at me. It was really funny. I just keep smiling with my greasy hands as I worked. I tried to explain but I don't know if they understood what I was telling them. It was very entertaining for everyone, myself included.

Here's a link to Wikipedia's Veggie oil page for anyone who's interested. I bought my kit from grease car.
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Vegetable_oil_used_as_fuel

Ideally I'd give the oil a couple of days to settle before filtering and using it as fuel. Whenever possible I will do this on the road. I may be shortening my engine life slightly by just filtering and driving but diesels can run for 500,000(or so I've read) so I'm not too worried. It will be a grand experiment.

I want to give a big shout out and thank you to my friend who's a mechanic who did the conversion for me. I feel really good knowing someone did the work who's really interested in the system and actually cares if it works.

Great Ebay Story

My car is sold! Yeah! I was starting to get nervous. I needed to sell my VW to fund my trip. Plus I'm leaving this week. I've pushed back my leaving date to Saturday, the last day I have my apartment. Leaving and preparing for this trip has been a great experience.

I sold my car through ebay but not on ebay. A Russian man called me a couple of days a go to come look at the car. He said he was from Brooklyn and wanted a car to ship to Russia. He came that night and gave me a cash deposit. He looked at the car for about an hour while talking to someone in Russia the whole time. The one problem, he wanted me to drive the car after he officially bought it to a port in Jersey. He would then drive me back to Philly. I agreed, for a price.

Well, everyone and I mean everyone I spoke to thought I was nuts to let some strange guy that was shipping a car to Russia drive me back to Philly. I thought he was a little different but all he talked about was his kid and wife. Plus my first impression of him was good. I was afraid he was going to arrive in a bad suit or any kind of suit. But he just looked like a NYC rocker guy.

In the end I let my Dad come and take me back to Philly. Thanks Dad for taking your whole night out to help me sell my car.

The guy had told me he was musician when he first came to look at the car. I'm a huge music lover so after he bought the car I asked him about it. Guess what? Sasha Kazachkov an original member of Gogol Bordello bought my car. He told me in was in a band that's now quite famous but he had quit. Too much Rock and Roll for him.

As I spoke to him and he told me about the band he was in and how they played with Madonna I wasn't really sure who they were. I came home and immediately got on the web. I had read about these guys but never knew how the hell the name was pronounced. Sasha's the guy on the left of the picture in the black suit without the hat.

Kick Off

In 10 days I'm leaving for a cross country trip that I have been planning for a year and half. My dog and I will be camping at National Parks, hiking, working and exploring anything that catches my interest. I have at least 4 months set aside for the trip. I have no real plan or route for the trip except to stay away from cold weather. I have a list of sites that I want to see and hope people will post suggestions.

I quit my job and move out of my apartment next week. I've sold or gave away well over 2/3 of my belongings. I'm selling my '04 VW Passat to fund the trip. Anyone need a car?

I bought a 1982 Mercedes a couple of weeks ago. I wanted an old diesel car to convert to veggie oil. The Grease car kit has arrived and is getting installed this week. Yah! I'm now the proud owner of a 26 year old, 187,00 miles driven, luxury cruising vehicle. Here's hoping I don't have to camp and work at a WalMart in the middle of now where to pay for repairs.

I bought the car off of craig'slist from a very nice guy. The car is now know as the Mac N Cheese car because of the following email exchange. I wish I had a camera on my face when I opened the first email. I was totally confused by the email but mainly I was disappointed. How could I buy the car off this guy? I did find him and the car through Craig's list after all. But thankfully the second email had a reasonable and funny explanation. I bought the car. The seller showed me the hamsters and his girlfriend when I went to pick it up.

"DEER MEGHAN THANK U 4 CLEANIN OUR CAGE KOVIN NEVER DO IT AND MY TURDZ SMELLDED KEEP UP DA GUD WORK

CHEEZ

dear m****,

i too appreciate your effort. can i have my own iphone next? it would mean so much to me. if not, another cage cleaning when needed would be ok.

love,
macaroni j. hamster

Nice to meet you today. As you probably figured out, the silly hamster email was supposed to be sent to my girlfriend, M***, but do to the wonders of auto-complete, you got it. Realizing what happened 20 minutes ago, I am beyond embarrassed, but also cracking up laughing. I'll joke around with her sometimes, sending fake emails from our hamsters "Mac" and "Cheese". Anyway, thought I would give you an explanation on why you got a crazy email this AM. Bet this didn't happen when people sold cars in the newspaper...
*****"