Began fryday afternoon. Turned on the GPS and typed in Sausalito CA as I quickly accelerated to a smooth cruse of 71.9 MPH. Fifteen miles outside the city I stoped at a rest-stop to rid of excess body fluid when I met William, a manager from a local Applebees. He was having an absolutlly terrible week. Just ticketed for speeding, in an argument with his girlfriend, and finding out he would have to personally deal with overflowing amounts of used vegetable grease because the truck wasn't going to pick it up this week. William explained he needed a rest before heading back to work and explaining to another 100 people that the email they got promising $50 gift certificates for forwarding on an email, was fake. I told him he didn't have it all that bad and that I could help. He laughed and loudly asked how I could possibly. I suggested a card and a nice set of flowers for the girl. Offered a trick on getting the ticket to stay off his record. Then I smiled wide and said I would take as much veggie oil as I could! He flashed a quizzical look of "who the hell are you" and questioned with a slight attitude, "what about the email!?!"
About 25 gallons later I had the oil heated, primed the fuel pump, and commenced on my journey with pride. Wondering what adventures lay ahead I lowered the windows, raised the music, and let the rays of sun push my little red benz through Iowa into Nebraska. That night I found a great little lake to camp at (free) and cooked up some grub as I watched the fish bound around the lake.
The nearly 4,000 pound automobile purred on veggie like it was catnip. Happy as a bee drinking honey tea. Saturday afternoon rolled by and I totally ran dry on oil. Time to find more. I found a KFC that was more than happy to rid of 50 gallons of oil. So happy they even payed 10 dollars and gave me a 5 pieace chicken lunch! Could it get any better? Amazed with my luck I loaded up and got back on the road. You can be sure that when life seems too easy that it is! It wasn't long before things started to turn. The engine began to stutter and putter (along with my heart). Had my plans been foiled? Did the injectors clog? I pulled over into a gas station and began to inspect the engine. Turned out to be air in the fuel lines. It should have been an easy fix but my priming pump wouldn't work. Time passed as I worked on the fuel send and return systems with some success. I must have had the engine running for awhile testing it out because the store clerk came out in a huff. He exclaimed that he was tired of explaining to disbelieving customers that they did not sell fried food and that the smells in the air were coming from something outside, some kids car!
Not discouraged and satisfied my new fuel transfer design would work I sped back on the interstate. It wasn't too much longer before my satellite radio stopped working. I ignored it for about a half hour before I pulled over to check things out. I took some things out from the back-seat to hopefully reveal a disconnected antenna wire from the control box that rested on the floor. To my horror I discover about four inches of 180 degree used KFC grease slowly flooding my back-seat floor! A last minute change to my tank before leaving mpls had proven fatal. My control box was completely covered in oil (along with everything else)! The worst part yet was the fact that I still had more than 40 gallons waiting to leak out of my polyethylene oil tank. What was I going to do? I pulled the drain plug in the floor I had installed just in case. Thinking that if I just kept driving the oil would slowly drip out the bottom of the car onto the highway as I drove. Boy was I wrong. Turns out that's not how holes in the floors of cars work. Air rushed in from the bottom and sprayed grease everywhere! The oil did everything BUT drain from the floor. I scrambled to find a secluded spot to dispose of my oil. I found a road, pulled over and started pumping it into a ditch. Good thing nobody was around. Oh well. Continued on my journey, but not as happy. Everything was coated in a nice shiny layer of used oil. Worse yet, the car now reeked of the fried chicken. Not so bad when it goes out the exhaust but when it's all over the interior of your car while driving through the hot Utah dessert and the car reaches 130 degrees inside temperature you want to pass out! Hot smelly sweat and grease covered my body and clothes. Time to find a place to camp! As I pulled off the road and headed further away from the interstate I found a wonderful field of sunflowers. Miles and miles of them. This was a big deal because sunflowers can be harvested and oil can be extracted for use in cars :) A sign to not give up hope.
I finally found a camp site another 10 miles off the highway. Set up camp under a beautiful moon and fell asleep. Minutes later I was jerked awake by a 4 inch downpour of rain and 30 mph winds accompanied by enough thunder and lightning to make the 4th of july look like child's play. After hours of waiting for it to pass I gave up and climbed back into the smelly oil car. I would drive another 22 hours before falling asleep at a rest-stop hours away from Sausalito CA.
