Thomas Pumping Veggie Oil!

Final Preparations and Goodbyes
I woke up pretty early today, ready to get a jump. I took a long hot shower, shaved, cleaned out my shower bag. It felt good to take some time to take care of my body, especially after weeks of hard work. This is it. Ready or not, today is the day.

Marlene came by this morning hoping to be able to watch us drive off, but we weren’t quite ready before she had to go off to an appointment. She and I had fun shooting some photos and and took a moment to say final goodbyes; a moment of tears, a moment that by design would have to be short and come to an end. It still seems unreal to be leaving. Saying goodbye to Marlene has been the hardest part of this whole adventure. However, it has also been a powerful reminder to know again that love can transcend space, time, and even other relationships. Everyday I am thankful and grow more appreciative of the people in my life, and Marlene has been such an amazing support for me over the last three years.

Thomas & Marlene say farewell.

Now we are poised to leave! But wait! Just a few more repairs! I realized sleeping in the truck last night that there is no way to close the rear window without turning on the ignition! So Phil quickly rigs a wire in the fuse box to keep the power windows turned on all the time. We still have to climb up to the cab, but at least we can open or close all the windows without having to find the keys and have them in the ignition. Then there’s the cruise control switch; four wires and a little plastic welding and Phil repairs it for us. He also gives us a 12volt air compressor and a tire repair kit.; things I didn’t have time or budget to get myself.

When we pull out of the driveway we discover that there is still a leak in the exhaust! Oh well, maybe we can fix it on the road somewhere! Time to stop fixing, time to start driving!

Kris & Thomas are chomping at the wrench to leave.

Off we go! Next Stop: San Francisco!
We are finally off! Michael, Dave and Phil are on hand for the Bien Viaje, and Kevin appears just in time for a final hug and good wishes. We head into San Francisco and immediately get lost trying to find the AAA office! We keep circling the blocks till we find the place, and quickly get our Inter-America Driver’s Permits, some spare passport photos, and “credit card” keys for the truck. On the way into the city I remembered that my dear friend Heather Ford never finished shooting any video of the truck actually running! She had come by a couple times over the last two weeks and we are putting together a little documentary video of the project. So I call her on the cell phone and she agrees to meet us at Rainbow Grocery at 4pm.

Rainbow Grocery has all the groovy alternative medicine, so we pick a laundry list of items for fighting parasites, and strengthening our immune systems and for stress etc etc. Thanks to Madeleina for the herbal consultation. We also pick up some favorite snacks and organic goodies for the road. Heather arrives, and we shoot a couple minutes of video, and she gets a final shot of us actually driving away!

Now we are on the road... And it is pretty exciting.. but also very normal. After all we're just driving. Fortunately traffic is not bad at 5pm. But as we drive and it gets darker the rain picks up, and the funky electrical problem begins to make the dash lights sputter and the radio cut out. I turn off the radio and we can still keep driving, as long as the engine and the headlights work. A diesel engine works on compression – there are no spark plugs or distributor and other electronic components that require electricity, the intense compression of the air in the cylinder creates enough heat to combust the oil without a spark. Only the glow plugs are electric, but those are come on only when the engine is cold to help heat the fuel in the cylinder. And the headlights appear to be on a different circuit. But as the rain picks up, we realize that the windshield wiper motor is also cutting out. This is starting to get a little dangerous, driving at night in the rain with no wipers and an electrical problem that can’t make up its mind. So a few mile past Salinas, where the big red Antiques barn is, we pull over at a gas station to try to investigate.

Roadside Repair- the Persnickety Electrical Problem
We pull up to the overhang of the gas station, and of course as soon as we stop the truck the problem disappears. So I pull forward a little bit out of the overhang and start jiggling wires to see if it is a loose connection. We then loose all the electrical! Nothing will work! No ignition, no accessories and the worst is no power windows, which is a real problem because the socket set is all the way in the back, behind the rear gate! Quick! Call Phil! Unfortunately Phil is unavailable right now... So we continue to blow fuses and try jumping different circuits. I manage to get power to the windows so we can get the tools out, and I drop the steering column to get at the wiring. Nothing seems apparent. No broken wires, not melted insulation and no connections loose. We jump the ignition circuit again and try to start the truck when suddenly smoke begins to rise off the engine! Quick! Get the fire extiquisher! No! Forget the extinguisher, give me a flashlight so I can find what the hell is smoking! The smoke clears, the flashlight appears, and we find the wire. A loose connection on the starter motor positive terminal has been the root of our problem. A second wire runs off that terminal and provides power to the vehicle, and that wire had shorted and finally fried. After a good 20 minutes of knuckle bashing, trying to figure out how to repair the wire, we decide to just cut it and run a new one off the battery instead. The starter motor is in a really tight spot between the engine, the frame rails, and the exhaust manifold. I hope I never have to replace it myself. I tighten the nut on the starter and we attempt to turn over the engine... The truck starts! So we put eveything back together (almost) and get back on the road at about 10:30pm

Driving to Santa Barbara – Kris takes her turn
It feels good now, the truck feels good and we feel good having successfully rescued ourselves. And the electrical is better than it was before too! Now we’ve got music, and everything electric works and all we have to do is make this leg of the trip. I start to fade around midnight, so we pull over and Kris takes the wheel for the first time. Fortunately it's not raining at the moment. I pass out and at when I wake up at 2:00 am we are just outside of Isla Vista, the college town next to U.C.S.B. where I spent many a crazy year. We pull into sleepy street and camp in the truck for the night.