November 21st, 2011

We had our first official event with the 2012 bus crew today! Though we needed an old bus legend (a founder of the Big Green Bus program, Rory Gawler) to drive the bus for us — we haven’t yet had the chance to get commercial drivers licenses — we managed to put on a great event and talk to a myriad of fellow Dartmouth students.

A Dartmouth professor in the Earth Sciences department who is a big fan of the bus (no surprise there) planned the event. He recommended we bring the bus to his class as a way to supplement the classroom discussion about energy alternatives. The class, entitled Environmental Change, is the largest class at Dartmouth, with over 200 students in the massive lecture hall. The course covers the realities of climate change, and Professor Robert Hawley has made very clear how the current anthropogenic changes differ in comparison to the cyclical oscillations in climate over hundreds of thousands of years. Unfortunately, the science doesn’t lie; humans are warming the planet at an unprecedented rate (check out the IPCC website for more information). This particular class period dealt with the realities of personal energy use and concluded with a discussion of the alternatives.  The Big Green Bus, therefore, was a perfect educational tool to bring the lesson to life.  Countless students climbed up to see the four 215 watt SunPower panels, and many more checked out the WVO tanks and filtration system.  We showed students our projected route for the upcoming tour on our solar-powered flat screen TV, and, impressed by the set-up, a handful of students expressed their jealousy of the incredible adventure that lay ahead for us.

All in all, it was a great opportunity for the new crew to get experience telling others about the Big Green Bus project.  Moreover, the invite from a distinguished member of Dartmouth’s Earth Sciences department to present to his class was a nice pat on the back for all of us.  It’s nice to know that the experts here at Dartmouth — i.e. the scientists who understand paleoclimatology and the realities of energy supply, generation, and consumption — support our project.  The event has left us more motivated than ever to create the best educational platform we can within the next seven months to take the country by storm!

BGB Love,

Matt

BGB Alum, Erik Skarin, showing Emerson the mechanics of the bus

From Left to Right: Kate Desrochers, Sarah Bourne, Lorenzo Carlisle, Ari Koeppel, Sam Parker, Emerson Skufca

The 2012 crew is already super stoked about next year’s trip! Our logistics team has already been working super hard to compile a list of tentative destinations for our trip this summer and has decided on some new places in terms of the Bus’s history (Kansas included!!). We would love to hear of any suggestions in terms of green events or eco-friendly companies that we need to hit up at each of our destinations, so let us know via email/facebook/twitter/etc. Our tentative list is below. Let us know what you think!

Love,

Sam <3

2012 BGB Destinations

Hanover, NH

Fairfield, CT

Long Island, NY

Lancaster, PA

Washington, DC

Staunton, VA

Raleigh, NC

Durham, NC

Asheville, NC

Gainesville, GA

Nashville, TN

Chattanooga, TN

New Orleans, LA

Austin, TX

Dallas, TX

Toas, NM

Page, AZ

Las Vegas, NV

Yosemite National Park, CA

San Franciso, CA

Redwoods National Park, CA

Lava Beds National Park, Tulelake, CA

Crater Lake, OR

Bend, OR

Portland, OR

Seattle, WA

Glacier National Park, MT

Missoula, MT

Yellowstone National Park, Gardiner, MT

Jackson, WY

Boulder, CO

Littleton/Denver, CO

Great Sand Dunes National Park, CO

Greensburg, KS

Kansas City, KS

Cleveland, OH

Ashtabula, OH

Erie, PA

I just wanted to say thanks again to Loaded Boards, Inc for sponsoring this year’s Big Green Bus crew! We do our best to get people thinking about how to reduce consumption of fossil fuels, and there’s no better way than to longboard for short trips around town. Did you know our bus needs to build up air pressure for the brakes and suspension each time we drive? With our fresh longboards we can scout for oil without having to cruise around with the bus, which is pretty unwieldy and hard to get to where restaurants keep dumpsters anyways.

Loaded hooked us up with a couple of their finest boards: a Dervish and the brand spanking new Fattail, both with their Orangatang wheels and bushings. Why Loaded, you ask? They make their boards from bamboo, which is an awesome choice since bamboo is the world’s fastest growing plant and is therefore very sustainable. Bamboo also looks dope and offers an amazing balance of strength and flexibility; we used bamboo for the bus counters and stairs for the same reasons. Loaded has even taken things to the next step by using carbonized bamboo. This is important because many people bleach bamboo to make bamboo that lighter color, but the bleach used for this process can be toxic and Loaded has decided to steer clear (AWESOME!).

If you’re interested in Longboards and saving some gas, grab some gear from Loaded Boards. We’re hoping to have Loaded with us again next year so keep an eye our for events with them in L.A. next summer! Here are a few of my favorite pics to get you stoked on riding and our bus!

- Jules

Today was my last day on the bus. Morgan and I awoke in our den (also known as super awesome basement) after a lovely night’s sleep and a late night of talking biodiesel. I got the very fun job of waking Jules up (wahahahaha…he was such a grouch) and we had a tasty breakfast with the Heller’s before hitting the road to Buffalo. The bus ride was bitter sweet. My last long bus ride wasn’t long enough. A lot of people have asked us recently if we were ready to be off of the bus. I think all of us would agree that no, we’re not really ready to be off of the bus, but we are excited to go back to school.  My last long roady ended in the open arms of my mom, dad, and brother, Uncle Jeff, Aunt Kathy and cousin Isabelle. Uncle Jeff was rocking some very stylish shorts (…I hope you can sense my sarcasm…) and Isabelle showed her future BGB potential as she climbed like a monkey through the bus, up the hatch and onto the roof.

Bus comes to Buffalo!

We had dinner at Anchor Bar, home of the original Buffalo wing, and were joined by my Uncle Jim, Aunt Sherry, cousin Amy, and Amy’s fiancée Rick. The bussers got a taste of my mom’s family as they watched a cross table (very, very loud) argument about the pluses and minuses of seat covers at the Amy and Rick’s wedding. The wings were delicious and Joey braved the suicidal wings as if he was sipping tea with honey. Uncle Jeff feared for Joey’s stomach but the rest of us knew Joey’s tummy can survive anything. Our trip to Anchor Bar became even more interesting when Anchor Bar gave us 90 gallons of veg. Never before had we eaten at the same restauraunt we got our veg from. Sure put an interesting perspective on all those buffalo wings we ate…

Our bus eats chicken wings. What does your bus eat?

Later that night when we made our way back through the city of Buffalo to my Uncle’s we settled into nostalgia. Although there were many comfy sleeping options in Uncle Jeff’s house, we spent our last night together on the bus.

We crawled out of comfy beds at Devo’s at 430 in the morning, passing out again as soon as we got on the Bus – merit of not being a driver! But Jules, Matt and Devo were champs and we actually beat the Google maps time to Cleveland – a feat that has never been achieved!

Our destination was Thistledown Race Track, a horse racing track owned by Caesars. The Bus had a primetime spot, trackside and next to the BBQ. I was worried that the big, green bus might distract the race horses but they seemed to speed by OK!

All afternoon we had everyone, young and old, aboard. The track was holding a family fun day so we had a great number of kids on board. I just love talking to kids about the Bus, especially when they haven’t heard of solar panels or alternative fuels, or when they insist that electricity in their house comes from the light switch box on the wall. You can see their eyes opening as you explain about the huge distances energy actually travels to get to their house, from the power plant, through the transmission lines and to their local substation. They’ve all heard of pollution, but have never made the link between electricity and pollution. Sometimes if you ask if they know anyone that has asthma they’ll point to their own sibling. Linking electricity to coal burning to asthma I think is such a valuable educational moment for them. One of my favorite things is the appreciation you can see on their parent’s face, wanting their children to understand these things.

The other educational moment I loved for the afternoon was that the track was handing out reusable shopping bags. A great statistic is that the average plastic bag is used for fifteen minutes and takes one thousand years to decompose. So, unless it has been recycled, every single plastic bag that was ever made is still around. Scary, scary thought. I just hope that the reusable bags we gave out will be used to displace some of the plastic ones, and not thrown away in the same manner!

My highlight of the day was that I got to represent the Big Green Bus in handing over a horse blanket to the winning trainer of the final stakes race of the day. I love horses so was awesome to be in a photo op with trainer, jockey and racehorses all around! Then the whole crew got their photo taken in the winning circle. Thanks so much to Marty and everyone else at Thistledown for hosting us!

From the race track we headed over to a Dartmouth alumni gathering, our last! Cleveland pulled out all the stops and we had delicious food, great conversation and even a refreshing swim. Dartmouth alumni around the country have been incredible. It’s a wonderful community. My dad once even joked that is alumni, not vegetable oil, that power our Bus trip! While we have gone through a few thousand gallons of vegetable oil, the alumni have also powered us with delicious food, comfy beds, hugs and rescues along the way too.

This is my last blog for the summer! I’ll post a few more thoughts soon, but for now, over and out. It’s been the summer of a lifetime.

- Morgs

Our day in Chicago was fantastic! We started with an event at the Field Museum of Natural History, a beautiful museum built in 1922 with miles and miles of specimen storage. We know this because we got a little behind the scenes tour from a crack squad of fish specimen researchers who were doing some incredible things with schools and specimens from Fiji.

The highlight of the day for me was being able to go to Church of the Holy Spirit, where I would go every Sunday and where my parents were married, and share my hometown of Lake Forest with the Bus. We had everyone from my reverend to my 3^rd grade elementary teacher (Hi Mrs. Bullard!) come out to see the Bus as well as a very strong showing from the North Shore Dartmouth alumni.

After showing off the Bus and a delicious potluck dinner we had a number of parishioners and bussers get together to have a discussion of how religion and the Bible lend themselves man’s dominion over nature and our stewardship. It was really interesting to weigh the first page of Genesis where we are given rule over all the animals, territories, and resources of the world with the message of being a “Good Shepard” and steward of what we’re given rule over…

But big thanks have to go out to Fred, Lynne, Trish over at the Field, and everyone from Lake Forest who came out. It was great to have the Bus back home, snagging a little veg from the Siloh area, and swimming down in the Lake.

- Devo

Big day today!  Our goal was to cover roughly 1,000 miles, traversing South Dakota, Minnesota, Wisconsin, and finally ending in Chicago.

Our first stop was Mt. Rushmore.  We had hoped to arrive the day before in time to see it lit up at night, but a similarly long driving itinerary kept us on the road until 2AM.  We still drove past the entrance of the park, where we discovered that buses carry a $50 admission fee to be able to drive to the monument.  However a park ranger (after verifying that we were not Greenpeace: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2009/07/08/AR2009070802246.html) tipped us off the night before that they don’t start charging until 7AM, so we made our plan to set off early.

The BGB's New Friends

After rising at the crack of dawn, I conducted the bus to Mt. Rushmore while everyone else rested in the back.  After seeing just how manicured the national parks had become, I was harboring fears of encountering something truly horrible – the Mt. Rushmore National Gift Shop.  However to my surprise, the Mt. Rushmore we found was nothing of this sort.  The sculptures of the four presidents were spectacular, and in my opinion the entire monument was presented with the utmost respect and dignity.  Of course my impressions were made at 6AM in an empty park – maybe when it’s filled up with cars and hundreds of fat tourists it carries a different ambiance.

One quick note – the surrounding tourist traps were nowhere near as austere.  They were some of the most vile exploitations of American history and culture I’ve encountered.

The rest of the day was defined by a long drive east.  Hopping on I-90, we set our sights on Chicago.  We were greeted by our single longest uninterrupted GPS instruction of the tour – 673 miles, no turns.  Daunting.  After something horrid like 17 hours of driving we arrived at Nick’s house in Lake Forest, IL, one day ahead of schedule.

We’re only a few days and one time zone away from home.  After 11,300 miles it’s hard to believe that our journey is coming to an end!

Matt

Today we woke up to a 43-degree Teton morning. The sun had just risen (according to Meegan) and we were all up at 7 thanks to someone’s (not sure who’s) musical alarm. It was time to go get some fuel. Phil Cameron, the Executive Director of the Yellowstone and Teton Clean Energy Coalition and Alicia Cox, the Programming Director had made some calls to help us find veg. They had shown us the documentary Fuel (Which is AMAZING) and were psyched to help us out. And we were psyched to keep using waste oil! We met up with Phil and Alicia at 8 am and started our hunt. I went with Phil to check out the first place. Mind you, it was still colder than August has any right to be, so the veg was still quite solid. And the first 55 that we crackle tested had too much water in it. But when we came to the next place, it was a gold-mine of cubees. They were very clean, and we’d changed all our filters the day before (not a fun process, but much easier because of our sliding racks) so it pumped very fast. And then things got even better.  Winslow Bent, the owner of Legacy Classic Trucks brought a freshly restored Dodge Power Wagon over. It was immaculately rebuilt with a 4-cylinder Cummins engine and that runs biodiesel. It was quite a machine. He showed us his shop, where he had an old GMC tow truck that they were restoring and putting a diesel engine in. All of the trucks in their shop (except for their Corvette-powered racing/rock-crawling Power Wagon) get 25 to 30 miles per gallon because of their diesel engines. Winslow was particularly excited about a new restoration he was about to begin: He is turning a 1950s GMC truck into an electric vehicle. He said it will get 150 miles to a charge and have lots of torque. Great for cruising around town, and much better than the gas guzzling engine it used to have.

Dodge Power Wagon restored by Legacy Classic Trucks. Sweet!

After picking up about 40 gallons in cubees, we went to another place in Jackson that Phil arranged for us. It was a warehouse for ski equipment run by a man named Evan Roy. Evan runs his Ford 7.3L F-350 on waste oil, so he had a lot stocked up. Phil called Evan and he said we could take almost an entire pallet of cubees. It was quite an operation: we had at least 20 cubees covering the ground around the bus. While we were pumping, a few of us took a quick swim in a nearby creek. It was small but strong! Meegan’s bellyflop ended up carrying her a hundred feet downstream in the freezing cold water. It felt great to swim off the camping (and veg. pumping) grime. It was about one hundred gallons, which filled our running tank, but our V-bottom still could take a hundred gallons. Good thing Phil had one more site on the list.

This should get us to Chicago! Thanks Evan!

He took me to check it out…and sure enough, it was the jackpot. Eight 275-gallon totes full of settled oil. Perfect! They belonged to a small biodiesel company, and the owner said we could have as much as we wanted! We topped off our tank, then pumped the four 15-gallon drums of biodiesel into our diesel tank so that we could take 60 more gallons of veg. All told, we had 570 gallons of fuel on the bus! Multiply that by ~7, you’ll get the miles we can go, as well as the approximate weight of the fuel we’re carrying. It weighs more than my entire VW Golf! After graciously thanking Phil and Alicia, we set off for Mount Rushmore. Five hundred miles is nothing for our newfound fuel. We drove for several Bravehearts (according to Devo’s driving log), and then some. The ‘14s discussed some big ideas for future plans (Top Secret!) We got to Mount Rushmore after midnight, which was a bummer because the lights shut off at eleven. After assuring a Park Ranger that we were not affiliated with Greenpeace, he said it would be fine for us to park in a National Forest turnout. We were all able to find floor/couch/bed space and we settled down for the night. Sunrise at Mount Rushmore in the morning!

-Erik

Our day started with a full cooked breakfast at Grant Village Campground in Yellowstone. Two of Meegan’s friends were visiting from Bozeman and they’d brought the world of gourmet camping with them – our fire-charred bacon was trumped by fresh pancakes! It was also a notable morning as we did laundry. Some of us even showered. Though $2 for 6 minutes seemed a little excessive.. way too many minutes!

From the campsite we all piled back onto the Bus for a drive down south. But not until being told off for over-occupying our campsite by the rangers – they saw ’13 Students. 1 veggie-powered bus. 12,000 miles.  All for a greener tomorrow.’ on the side of the Bus and assumed that all 13 of us were squeezed in the one campsite! But we were actually down to 7 bussers for our stay in Yellowstone.

We drove out of the park through the south entrance, taking us straight into Grand Teton National Park. What a spectacular place. Me and Meegs had our noses glued to the window, and were so jealous of Joey, who was biking from Yellowstone down to Jackson (67 miles, after a 110 miles the day before going around the Yellowstone caldera drive!) We went through thick forest, open meadows and river valleys, spotting bison, elk and snowy peaks. Those Tetons sure are grand.

So beautiful

Along our way we pulled into the Jackson Lake Lodge, a beautiful old world park lodge. After talking to kitchen staff, the front-desk girls and recycling staff we found a good 30 gallons of grease in a drum out back. The crackle test we do to test for water showed a tiny bit of water in the oil but we’re desperate for fuel so we decided to pump anyway – into our V-bottomed tank where the water may have a chance to settle out of the oil. Pumping then turned into a two-hour endeavor when we realized that pretty much every filter we have needed changing! Lumps of grease, fat and puddles of oil later.. we were on our way down to the Craig Thomas Discovery and Visitor Center in Moose, WY!

There we met up with Alicia Cox and Phil Cameron from the Yellowstone-Teton Clean Energy Coalition. They had been awesome enough to invite us down to the area for an event, and worked with the National Park Service to get us a spot to park the Bus at their incredible new centre. We had a really successful event, with everyone from the Superintendent of Grand Teton National Park to a family from Boston who’d read about us when we went through there in June! It was also fantastic to meet a number of people from other local conservation organizations, including the Murie Centre and the Jackson Hole Conservation Alliance. I love it when people already recruited to the cause come onto the Bus as conversation goes that extra level. I thought we were going to be challenged more this summer, and meeting with other people working in the same field is a great way to bring more challenging questions onto the Bus!

This was one of my favorite events ever as it didn’t finish when we closed up the Bus. We then went on inside to the state of the art visitor centre to watch Fuel in their new auditorium. I got to say a few words at the beginning to introduce the Bus which was fun! It’s amazing how much easier public speaking is when you’ve spent all summer talking to hundreds of people you don’t know.

Anyway, Fuel. I don’t even know where to begin. This film blew my mind in so many ways. First off was the opening graphics which stated ‘Change your fuel. Change the world.’ That was the BGB slogan for many years and none of us had any idea the Bus hadn’t come up with it! Then Josh Tickell was introduced, author of ‘From the Fryer to the Fuel Tank’, the defining piece of literature on using waste vegetable oil as fuel. He cruised around the country for more than two years in the ‘Veggie Van’ promoting alternative fuels. Eerily familiar. The film then goes on to touch on almost every aspect of the alternative energy debate – from national security and human health to agriculture and hurricanes… to a complete set of solutions. It’s emotional, striking, devastating and inspiring, all at the same time. Many of us were in tears at the end of the movie, and completely flabbergasted by the fact none of us had seen it before!

I cannot encourage all of you enough to watch this movie. You’ll struggle after to not change the way you think and feel at the fuel pump. And luckily, you can watch it online for free! Spread the love.

- Morgs

PS: And when you’re done watching Fuel (or before!), make sure to sign this petition against the Keystone XL pipeline. As you’ll see, we don’t need filthy oil. And when the people lead, their leaders will follow.

Yellowstone National Park.  Cool place.

The crew and I were tourists today.  With the exception of Joey, who set out early on an epic round-the-park century bike ride, we rose at the leisurely hour of 10 AM and fired up the bus to go exploring.  From our campsite in Grant Village we set off clockwise around the park’s main loop, first retracing our steps back toward Old Faithful.  We spent a few hours exploring the natural geothermal features including geysers and hot springs.  As one who knows next to nothing about geology I can say I was thoroughly mystified and entertained.

Contemplating pretty colors

woooooosh

From there we continued northward, stopping at a picnic area on the side of an open plain for lunch.  We were advised by one of Meegan’s friends to check out Firehole River Canyon, so we readied ourselves and continued onward.  The river itself was traced by a scenic one-way three mile auto loop that was bench cut into the side of the canyon.  It was well worth the detour – we were met by spectacular waterfalls and cliffs.

Grand Canyon of the Yellowstone

Next up was Artist Paintpots, one of the quirkier features we found.  It is a collection of hot springs whose geothermal vents are tinted different colors by varying mineral compositions.  The bubbling pools of water were seemingly alive, and the panoramic view afforded by a short climb up a boardwalk showcased a full pallet of colors.

At Erik’s behest we investigated the famous Mud Volcano.  When this feature was discovered by explorers in the nineteenth century it was a steep peak that was actively belching mud in place of magma.  Its activity was so fierce that it blew itself apart within a few years.  What remains is a series of hot springs that are filled with sludge in place of water.  It was very neat to see, but not so kind on the nose – the area reeked of sulfur, a gaseous element whose presence is indicative of geothermal activity.

glug glug glug

Our final stop before returning home was the famous Yellowstone Falls.  Since we were short on sunlight we did not have time to hike to the bottom, but the parking lot treated us to some pretty spectacular views of the steep waterfall and river below.

While we were exploring the park from the comfort of our veggie-powered bus, I found myself struggling with the ease of the experience.  On one hand, thanks to the park’s ample auto access we were able to spend time at a number of interesting sites within a single day.  Yet on the other hand I found myself almost removed from the experience while behind the wheel of the bus.

I was irked by how easy it was to access the thrills of the park – as an avid mountain biker I believe in “earning my turns” on fun downhill runs by suffering through the tough climbs that precede them.  That extra effort serves to make the final reward that much more enjoyable.  Yet at Yellowstone all one needed to have a Yellowstone experience was a clear schedule and a tank of fuel.  I suppose this easy access has the positive effect of exposing nature to a demographic that would otherwise be either unable or unwilling to seek it out.  Yet at the same time I see this contributing to the aggressive commercialism that is rampant throughout the park (and especially its surrounding towns).  Old Faithful, Yellowstone’s most famous geyser, was ringed with a boardwalk and bleachers.  A ritzy hotel complete with stores and gift shops sat just beyond them.

I immensely enjoyed Yellowstone, but I feel strongly that the Yellowstone experience that I had is not what the National Park Service should be promoting.  I cannot help but compare Yellowstone to the Great Sand Dunes in Colorado – sure you can drive to the Dunes’ visitors center and explore the museum and gift shop, but the core of the experience comes from what happens once you leave your car and set off across the sandy wilderness.  It is an experience so profound and surreal it I can only describe it as religious.  I’m sure if we had had more time to explore Yellowstone I would be singing a different tune right now, but I returned to our campsite tonight feeling that I had just been given the guided tour of the National Park Service’s perfectly manicured Yellowstone Theme Park.

/naturesnob

Matt