Breakfast at John’s – Carrot cake and Coffee. It’s a slow start despite the rocket fuel java. Its is just nice to be out of Berkeley, and not having to deal with the entire trip head of us, and not having to fix something or install something. At least now we are out the gate! John makes us stand outside of his house with a handful of peanuts... And the bluejays come and eat them right out of our hands!

Feeding the Bluejays...

Meet "Bob" the Bluejay! Buenos dias Bob.

So we are off to get oil but the truck won’t start! We didn’t switch back to diesel soon enough the night before and it has been pissing down rain so it is cold and won't start on veggie oil. We try plugging in the block heater and start trying to purge the engine of the veggie oil. One trick is to disconnect the Injection Pump Soleniod, crack open the gas cap, and crank the engine to move the fuel through the system. We also used our little 12v inline pump to prime the lines with diesel. We go it started after waiting an hour pulling out all our tricks. We’ll have to be more dilligent, because we don’t want to risk “coking” the injectors or pistons with veggie oil deposits, not to mention that cranking the starter so much will decrease its life.

So now we head over to the dining commons to get out first batch of oil....but the grease is too thick and too dirty! Same thing at Carillo! We should have looked at it first. We leave the dining commons, feeling very uncertain. Now what? We thought for sure we would get 40 gallons or so from them, and instead, nothing. Perhaps we should be prepared for thick grease? What if we can't find oil like we want?

So we go to a Sushi restaurant in Isla Vista, and spoke with one of the enmployees, who directed us to one of the chef's, Jose. Jose instructed us to meet him in back, where there was a green metal barrel with "Ventura Rendering" painted on the side. The barrel wasn't full but in broken spanish we explained to Jose about the truck and we was pleased to let us take some oil. He also got on the phone and started calling the other restaurants in the "Sushi Terri" chain. Apparently there were 5 or 6 restaurants between Isla Vista and Ventura, and he thought we might get lucky. We quickly pumped about 9 gallons and after practicing our spanish a little bit more, when headed off in search of more 'fool's gold," as I like to call it now.

Kris & Jose of Sushi Terri in Isla Vista,
our first oil find on the road!

We head into the Isla Vista Food Coop to get some more supplies, and we had fun talking with the employees, who offered us pretzels to scrape the honey out of the bottomn of a 5gal bucket that was just used to refl thier honey dispenser. We wanted to keep looking for oil, but we have to get to the Lobero Theater by 2 if we wanted to see Sam’s performance.

Sam & Santa Barbara Dance Theater
in the Circus of Love, Lobero Theater, S.B.

It was a kids performance and was really fun. I can’t remember the last time I was around so many little ones! The theater was packed! I saw Jerry another of my dance teachers, and Christina too. After Sam’s show was "Boxtales"; Mat Tavanninni, Michael Andrews, guys I knew from college that were performing storrytelling using movement theater, words, drumming and dance. They told the story of a famous african spider that gains the knowledge of the entire universe from a grain of corn. It was great.

Then off to another of the Sushi restaurants, but a quick peek in the oil drum out back and it wasn’t worth draggin out all the equipment in the rain. So off to another Sushi place and we scored about 25 gals in the car-boy containers. We brought it all back to John’s and in the fading light pumped what we could into our roof tank. A quick shower and then off to the Soujourner with John and Liz where Sam is working. After dinner though, we're all beat and we decide to call it an early night rather than try to party in Santa Barbara.