Yuma to Midpines

Biggreentruck had a great time sitting around in the 100+ degree heat of Yuma, Arizona while I went on a couple of adventures on the Corps of Engineer designed lower Colorado River. Between the Marines, the Proving Ground and the Border Patrol, one can imagine what life around Checkpoint Charlie might have been like. And now we're adding the National Guard?

Yuma to Jtree: purging the wvo from the engine is much less of an issue when it's 107 outside and the engine doesn't really cool down while you're in Dairy Queen. Of course, you do have clean up more melted ice cream. The climb from the Sonoran Desert to the Mojave through the Park may take longer than staying on the highway but the scenery, wildlife and total lack of traffic are all worth it.

Jtree to Victorville: stopping in to meet jeffnlisa from the greasecar forums. Jeffnlisa kindly shared some filtered oil. Biggreentruck modeled its conversion to help shed light on the differences between converting a Jetta and an F250 as well as between Greasecar and Frybrid. (Biggreentruck wants a little vw friend to play with someday.) Biggreentruck is looking forward to being settled for a little while so it can share oil with other travellers.

Victorville to Midpines: ah, home....at least for the next 3 months. Biggreentruck finally has a parking place all its own surrounded by trees, open space, great people and even a little stream. Pop up the camper, organize the gear, clean up some grease spots, talk to some restaurants about oil. Next project: get the electric in the camper working.

Grease specific: Can anyone explain the 180 degree rule? Happy Earth research disputes the idea that you must be at 180 degrees to get the appropriate viscocity but shows that different oils have different optimum temps (you can never be sure what kind of oil you are burning). The problems with trying to burn cold oil are obvious but can oil ever be too hot (assuming the engine isn't overheating)?

Happy Earth Recycling

Shea, Chris and Biggreentruck at Happy Earth Recycling headquaters. The electric pumps were all out of order so we transferred almost 50 gallons of oil with the hand pump.

Alternative Fuels in the Media

Biggreentruck has been pretty out of touch with the media over the last month or so. But, the folks in Vermont and Colorado report that veggie oil has been showing up on national television lately. We've been hearing a lot about ethanol (thanks GM) and biodiesel over the last several months while WVO has received less publicity. Does anybody know where the story on Lovecraft Biofuels in LA aired? I'd be interested to see/read it.

Here's a link to a related discussion on the BBC: http://newsforums.bbc.co.uk/nol/thread.jspa?threadID=1669&&edition=2&ttl=20060507210347

Photos of the recent fill-up adventure and biggreentruck's new handpump coming as soon as I get the camera batteries charged.