Citizenshift

If you are wondering why I'm not posting very often here it's because I'm now writing a blog for the National film board of Canada website. The section is called Citizenshift, media for social change. I'm doing a sort of advise column for people who are trying to figure out how to adapt to the changing conditions of the environmment. It's called Ask the Green Queen, sage advise for green living. I want to change it to Ask the Green TEAM though, want to be on my team? Click here to check it out.

If you don't have anything nice to say...

Recently someone posted a comment on my Topanga blog entry saying "Brian Freedman is a con man...of course he was helpful to you, there was a camera crew there." I know that it was left by someone at the biofuels company that Brian used to own and is now in a heated legal battle with over rights and ownership. I would like to say that first of all I have no interest in being involved in your ridiculous campaign of negativity. Secondly, by leaving comments like that you are only making yourself look like an asshole so kindly stay off of my blog.

Pioneertown

Wow! After 11 months of living in my van I now am the proud renter of a house on 2.5 acres of high desert in Pioneertown, near Joshua Tree, California. In addition to the house we have a big garage to use as a workshop and art studio and plenty of space to park the Airstream trailer that we just bought. It's all very exciting! Our place is 4 miles from downtown Pioneertown which was built as a living movie set in 1946 and is now home to the best bar in California, Pappy and Harriet's.

Our neighbors have 10 horses and 3 dogs which I am going to care for when their owner, Paula is off on the rodeo circuit! It's a dream come true for me and Blendy so I hope you'll come visit soon. Click here to see a little slideshow.

Moss Landing

Moss Landing is situated right at the middle of Monterey bay, on the central California coast. It is surrounded by the Salinas valley to the east, the Santa Cruz mountains to the north and Big Sur to the south. The entire area is like a nature refuge full of seabirds, sea otters, California sea lions, dolphins and in the spring there are even jaguar sharks that breed in the estuary called Elkhorn slough., Apparently it's the only place in the world where you can watch sharks breeding from the shade of an oak tree.

We are looking after the world's best dog, named Bleu and three cats, Guzzi, BeeBee and Buddy.

So far I've collected grease from the Moss Landing café which does a brisk business selling deep fried artichokes which were probably grown in the field across the road. The Salinas valley is all agricultural and is known as "America's salad bowl". John Steinbeck grew up here and several of his novels were set in the valley.

Brian from True Biofuels came up to shoot some scenes for the documentary project and we discovered a goldmine of grease at the giant Asian buffets over in Salinas, 10 miles away. I also collected some great stuff at a Japanese restaurant in Santa Cruz, 20 miles north. We have been getting most of our supplies in Santa Cruz at the farmer's market and Staff of Life market. There is B99 biodiesel available at Pacific Biofuels for only $3.59 a gallon, when most of the diesel sold around here is about $3.65 per gallon.

In short, I am quickly falling in love with my temporary home. It offers everything I need and then some. I'm in love with the stark beauty of the Salinas valley and the towns like Castroville and Watsonville where you can visit Mexico without leaving California.

Topanga

The morning that I was planning to leave to go to Moss Landing and house sit for my old friend Krista I had arranged to meet with Brian from True Biofuels. Production of a documentary about his innovations in alterntaive fuels had just begun and they planned to include a segment on selling on eBay from the road, as I have been doing for over a year now. Brian and the film maker, Marc came over and talked to me as I packed up and filtered the last of my grease for the long drive. We had a really enjoyable talk and agreed to keep in touch about their documentary which will include traveling through the country in a 1967 Mercedes tour bus that runs on vegetable oil. Brian helped me to purge the air out of my fuel system which I believed had gotten there when I ran out of fuel in the valley. Before leaving he even said to call him from Moss Landing if anything went wrong with my van and he and would come up and fix it and bring the film crew to document the repairs. Wow.

I headed out north on 101, driving on diesel as I planned to wait until the engine was hot to try switching to grease. I pulled over at Topanga Canyon road to fill up the diesel tank and try switching a few times before getting back on the freeway. After the first couple of attempts at switching it became apparent that there was something a little more serious wrong with my fuel system. So as to not drain the battery while attempting to restart the van I called Brian and said "I need help NOW."

Brian was a few minutes away since he was headed back to his place in Topanga so he said he would come to the gas station and give me a hand. When he got there he spayed starting spray, AKA ether, into my air filter and jump started the van and we drove off down the winding canyon road to his place in Topanga.

Brian really knows his way around the vegetable oil system, having built over 1500 of them himself. The task at hand was to pinpoint where air was getting into my fuel line which we discovered to be a leaky valve on the bottom of my fuel filter. Brian replace the valve with a tight fitting hose and bolt combination as a temporary measure. With that done we thought we were pretty much in the clear and began to test drive the van. Topanga canyon is all steep hills and narrow roads and as we were climbing the hill by his house I said "I really hope I don't stall on this hill." and then I did. I rolled the van down the hill to a safe parking place and we tried to resart the van until the battery started to lose it's charge and we tried jumping it to no avail. At that point it was getting dark and we decided to pack it in and continue in the morning.

In the morning the engine would not turn over at all and it seemed that we had killed the starter motor. The battery wouldn't jump start so with Brian and Bob's help we pop started the van as we rolled it down the hill and drove it to Glendale to have Brian's mechanic look at it. It turned out that the alternator that I had just had installed was not charging the battery and needed to be replaced. That would explain the battery dying so quickly when I'm trying to restart the van with air in the fuel line. We left the van at the shop and Brian drove me over to a friend's place. We met the next morning when my van was ready and everything was finally working the way that it should be except that my glow plugs were not working properly. Thankfully my van has a manual glow plug switch on the dash and I can heat them that way.

Finally, in the early afternoon, only two days late I left for Moss Landing.

The Valley

My new friend Jennifer and I made a plan to go to some thrift stores in the Valley. Canoga Park, Reseda, places like that. I picked her up in Tujunga and we headed over to the Sally Ann in Canoga Park and then I stopped at a gas station to look at the phone book. After that we went to a thrift store in Panorama city and when I went to pay for something I discovered that I didn't have my wallet. It was almost 4pm and we were about 6 or 7 miles from the gas station where I had last had it. So, during rush hour traffic we tried to get back there as quickly as possible, which isn't very quickly at all. I was panicking, thinking that certainly someone would have taken it. So, as I was panicking and stuck in traffic the van ran out of fuel in the vegetable oil tank. I had half a tank of diesel but when I tried to switch over it was too late. The van wouldn't restart on diesel because there was nothing in the fuel line so we had to get the last litre of vegetable oil from the bottom of my container into the tank. The vegetable oil has to be pumped in from the 5 gallon container and if it's not full enough it's really hard to get enough pressure to get it to actually pump. So Jennifer and I poured vegetable oil from a squeeze bottle into the tube that leads to the tank just to get eough in there to get it to pump on it's own. As Jennifer held the tube in place I started the van and switched it over to diesel. Phew, now we just had to get through the traffic to get to the gas station and then try to get Jennifer home close to 5pm for her boyfriend's birthday dinner.

When we got to the gas station I double parked and ran in and miraculously the man said "I have it right here, we tried to find your number" I didn't have much cash in there but I offered him $20 for his help and he wouldn't take it. I bought $10 of diesel and got on the freeway to get Jennifer home just a little late for her date. She made me a vodka tonic and I relaxed in the van a bit before heading back to Spa Robyn for a long soak in the hot tub.

Lompoc

We got in late and rather than look for a beach spot in the dark Blendy and I paid to stay at the State park in Pismo Beach because the one in San Simeon stunk worse than Cowshwitz on a late July afternoon. We had a nice spot shaded by eucalyptus and showers for $20. We were out of propane at the time but luckily there was even a Starbucks nearby so we could get the baby his baba on the way out of town.

We went to the beach at Surf and went to the Rice Bowl restaurant in Lompoc but finding no grease we got a menu and made plans to go there for dinner on the way back up north. I'm thinking after dinner we do some bowling. Who's coming? Late November. Call me.

Moss Landing

Since Blendy and I will be house sitting for our friend Krista in December we stopped in to visit her on the way to LA and we were treated to a feast of Cioppino and Strawberry shortcake with whipped cream while we got to know Blue, the dog that we will be looking after. In the morning we spent some time on the beach before heading down Highway One on one of those perfect coastal fall days. In Monterey we were able to pick up 30 gallons of grease all ready to go in containers from the Chinese Buffet and then stopped at the beach to filter some and popped the top for a little siesta. Yes actually, my life IS perfect. I hope yours is too, if it's not, you might want to think about getting a van.

Napa

I gave Blendy the tour of the mountain where I once lived for 6 months in Napa. This store is the closest place to buy sugar. It costs nine dollars. The next closest store is Dean and DeLuca, where it costs $9.50, I will say though, that if you are driving 29 and you have the munchies between these two stores you can eat your own weight in free samples, so there's that.

San Francisco

After we had coffee Blendy and I went to the Mission pool to swim and take showers and then went to Creativity Explored, the best art gallery in the world. Blendy found a beautiful fabric wall hanging and I bought a piece by John Patrick McKenzie to hang in the van. After that we went to Burma Superstar for samosa soup and shrimp kebat on our way over to Baker beach for a little siesta in the van with a view of the Golden Gate bridge.

That night we drove back up to Sonoma and spent the night in our little cabin in the barrio and got to go to the Sonoma Charter School Halloween carnival and haunted house.

Keda as Super Fly

Sonoma

I took 128 from my camping place and was headed to Sonoma when Blendy Maguro called me with the news that his trip to Brazil had been cancelled and he was arriving in San Francisco THAT NIGHT. I pulled over immediately at the Scharffenberger winery and picked up a bottle of bubbly to celebrate.

After a stop at the world's largest Sally Ann in Healdsburg I stopped in at Dmitra and Pascal's in Sonoma and then headed to SFO to get Blendy. We went for tacos and tequila in the mission and then headed to my usual parking place on Bernal hill. In the morning we had coffee and hot chocolate at Mission Creek on Valencia and went to Rainbow Grocery to get something for dinner with Wig and Ad.

In 36 hours I went from my favorite beach down my favorite highway to my favorite thrift store and visited my favorite people on my way to have dinner with my other favorite people. Wow. And the next morning I wake up with my favorite bear and take a walk on the top of Bernal hill. Wow.

Mendocino

I pulled into Ft. Bragg in a hurry to get to the beach and watch the sunset but I needed supplies so I headed to the Down Home market where, even though they were in the midst of closing up they let me grab a few things and even filled up my water bottles for me. I made it out to the beach north of town and made zuchini and red pepper salad as the sun went down. I crashed there that night and then hit the thrift store in Ft. Bragg in the morning before heading down the coast.

I've been debating whether to write about my favorite camping place on the whole coast of California, which is where I went the next day. I'm afraid that if I tell the whole world that it will get ruined so I'll just describe it and you'll have to figure out where it is. The whole stretch of coast from Ft. Bragg to Point Arena is great and this is the only legal campground that's right on the beach at the mouth of a river, which I will not name, but take a look at a map and you'll figure it out.

Everytime I've been there I've had an amazing time, there are only about 7 parking places and they are always empty, maybe one or two other campers. One time I met an old pot farmer named Bobby Jean who poured tequila on the fire and taught me to do the hand jive on top of a picnic table.

This time there was one RV flying tibetan prayer flags and when I woke up the Dude and his friends were parked in another space wearing sweaters and having coffee around the fire.

In the afternoon when I arrived the sun was shining and I did some nude sunbathing and then took some pics of my eBay stuff as the sun was setting.

Eureka

It feels weird to be here without making a trip out to the Lost Coast. For those that don't know the Lost Coast is about the most remote place in California, it's 2 hours on a two lane road to get out there and once there, there's nothing but coast and mountains. There used to be a bar called the Hideaway that had karaoke on Fridays but they closed a few years ago. Originally Highway One was supposed to go there and meet up with 101 near Eureka but the King's range proved too difficult to build the road through, so that stretch of coast remained desolate and "lost". Some time I'll tell you about the first time I went out there and got stalked by a weird Christian dude from Oregon. Today I guess I'll just go thrifting in Fortuna instead.

I'm planning to stay at one of my secret beaches on the Mendocino coast tonight down by Westport where I have stayed and camped illegally many times over the years. It sure beats paying $25 to stay at McKerricher beach state park. I love to visit the California sea lions and collect bits of abalone shell there but $25 is way outside my budget so I've only camped there once. Here's a picture from my drive down 299. It was gorgeous and winding and I got tailgaited by a dude flying a confederate flag from his truck. Hmm..I guess I could have pulled over and let him get by but...I didn't.

Redding

I needed some grease to get me from Redding to Eureka so I just pulled over at a Mexican restaurant on 299 and I am filling all my containers with lovely clean vegetable oil. They were so friendly about letting me have it too, unlike the Pioneer restaurant near Shasta who refused to even let me LOOK at their greasetrap and asked if I was going to sign a waiver if I took their used oil. Uh..okay, never mind, thanks. Then the restaurant in lakewood had a recycling bin full of tell-tale shortening containers. No thanks.

Well, I am taking about 25 gallons while I relax in the sun, listening to Cyril Pahuini.

Then I get to drive a road that's been on my list for a long time. 299 from Redding to Eureka, through Whiskeytown and Hoopa valley. I'll be in SF on Wednesday. See you soon!

Ashland

I always stop in Ashland on the way to California. It's the perfect stop after the drive from San Francisco or Portland. There's good food and I get to go to Jackson Wellsprings and relax in the hot tub and sauna after a long day of driving. As long as there are no sunburned white dudes doing native American chants it's a good time. I don't have as much fun when I forget to bring my flip flops though, that's for sure.

Since I'm too cheap to pay the additional $9 for camping at Jackson Wellsprings I always park in town, by the park and use the wireless at The Black Sheep pub. The Black sheep, it should be noted, turns into a small town frat party at nine pm sharp on any night of the week, so now I've learned to just stay in the van and use the wireless from Louie's, a couple of doors down.

One time Blendy and I woke up at the park after a blizzard that closed I-5 and a dog ran alongside the van in the morning, as if trying to tell us to get out and play in the snow. So we did.

I should mention also that Eugene is a great place to stop for food. If you take the 30th Ave exit you can fill up on biodiesel and ethanol at Sequential Biofuels and then keep heading west to Sundance market at 748 E. 24th. They have all kinds of yummy hot and cold organic food and biodegradable take out containers in case you forgot to your own.

Portland

Aaah..I'm relaxing in the lap of luxury over here at JW's pad enormous bachelor pad, enjoying some wine and home cooked food. We went to the farmer's market at People's (my favorite) Co-op and got some chantrelles for tomorrow's dinner and chiles for tonight's beans and polenta with tomatillas. I did some errands like replacing the driver's license that was stolen in New Orleans and picking up some artwork from the cute new downtown gallery, Pony Club.

I went for a little bike ride around N. Mississippi before dinner in the chilly fall air, bright leaves falling all around. It made me fall in love with Portland all over again and gave me a dose of housing envy because there are so many beautiful houses around here. I like it.

I made it here from Victoria (350 miles) on about 16 gallons of grease, not counting a side trip to Abbotsford (80 miles RT) so that makes 26 MPG. My estimate has always been about 23 when I'm loaded down like this. Not bad. Now I just need to find some more grease in a town where you can't spit without hitting a greasecar! Wish me luck..

Oh, photos coming soon. I got a new camera but I still don't have a copy of Photoshop. Can anyone help?

Seattle

Normally I try to just get through Seattle and it's all day rush hour traffic as quickly and cleanly as possible but today I made a rare exception and stopped to get some food with my old friend, Bob. The sun even came out when I pulled up to his cute little house in West Seattle and broke my antenna on the hedge next to the driveway. After some vegetarian Pho Bob, Val and I went to pick up the antique sink Bob had stolen in Belfast, where it once held dirt and flowers in someone's yard. The wooden crate that Bob packed it in was opened back at home to reveal the karmic consequences.

Before I headed out for Portland Bob and Val sent me in the direction of some biodiesel from Safeway. Nice to know It's there but I filled up before noticing that it costs $3.43 a gallon. I don't know but I'm pretty sure it's cheaper in Portland. I guess I'll know soon.

Vancouver

I was once again a guest in the lovely home of Ellen and Ralph in east Van. It's always a treat to relax in a safe, quiet neighborhood with plenty of parking. This being Vancouver however, I didn't feel safe enough to sleep in the house. Vancouver is and has almost always been plagued by drugs, unemployment and car break-ins. As Ellen says "They'll break in to your car if there's a big enough cigarette butt!" Knowing this, I've always been hyper vigilant with my vehicle so this is probably the best place to get used to expecting this unexpected like I should have when I was in Montréal.

I got to have dinner with Rob M. but instead of going for tried and true we went to Burnaby for Japanese and got cold agedashi tofu and mushy tuna.

My van is pretty loaded down with fuel and clothing but things are a lot more oganized than last time I was on the road. I made some important improvements like the laminate flooring and curtains and I hesitantly admit that I went to Daiso and I bought some new plastic items like a van sized dish rack. I'm planning to arrive in LA on the 29th to pick Blendy Maguro up at the airport. Only 1280 miles to go!

Woo Hoo!

About a week ago I sent my failed hard drive off to a data recovery service in Vancouver, all the while crossing my fingers that I could recover ANY of my photographs. I received a not-so-encouraging email from my boyfriend saying "Don't bother, my friend says it's IMPOSSIBLE!" And I told him that if there's one thing I've learned from owning my van it's that when things go wrong, EVERYBODY has an opinion. I did my best to ignore Brenndan's friend's naysaying and kept my fingers crossed. Well today dear reader, I have been informed that www.restoringdata.ca has recovered ALL of the files from the hard drive that I thought that I had wiped out with a bunch of super powerful magnets. It's going to cost $600, but that's a lot lower than the estimates I had been given earlier. So..with his piece of good news and the sun shining in October in Victoria I feel like celebrating! Or..maybe I should wait until Restart computer calls me back. I had them install a new hard drive and recycled display in my old machine and 12 hours later it began to malfunction. They are supposed to call me back today and let me know if it's working. I guess I'll keep my fingers crossed for now.

Replacing my Stuff

So..it's been a few months since my hard drive crashed and my computer screen got wrecked and all along I've been debating what to do about that and replacing my iPod that was stolen. I could have bought a second hand computer or even a brand new one, or Brenndan was going to buy a new one and give me his old one. My friend at Apple offered to let me use her discount to replace the computer or the iPod. In the end, I have decided to replace my crashed hard drive with a new one and I've found a used iBook with a busted logic board to so I can recycle the display. All told this should cost me about $400. I'm saving money not buying a new computer but more importantly I'm not buying any new stuff, except for the HD. I'm not ready to replace the iPod yet (I don't even have a computer!) but when and if I do, it will be with a used one. It took me this long to even decide what to do but now that I have I'm glad I'm doing this, not least because I don't even LIKE the new iBooks but because I'm also breaking the habit of buying new stuff. It seems like there has got to be an alternative to doing that.

I wish I could stay!

I've had NO trouble picking up grease since I've been back but as for finding a place to live...NOTHING. Brenndan and I looked all up and down the island but no luck. All the cabins are tiny and the houses we can afford are in town and too expensive. Turns out my hometown is now home to the most expensive real estate in Canada and the lowest vacancy rate. It doesn't bode well for people like me. Since I'm mobile and Brenndan is back out on the road I've decided to spend the winter months in California. I'm all set up for November and December and now looking for something around Joshua Tree for January, where I hope to stay and work on my show for Japan in April.

Farmfest '93

Farmfest! It was the best end of summer music festival gathering this island may have ever seen! 10 bands, 100 guests, camping in a big field and yummy samosas being served at Frybaby! I popped the top for Shawna and woke up with a giant mouse in my bunk. This is what summer on the island is supposed to be like! I'm already planning a menu for Farmfest '94! See you there!

Westfalia Island

I've been back on Vancouver Island for 21 days now and started counting how many VW Westfalias I've seen. 205. That includes a few on the mainland I must admit. When we only counted one at the Vancouver airport Sam said "It's because people who have westies would rather drive than fly." So true.

I love my friends!

Brenndan, Sam and I went up to Courtenay and visited Mimi, Dom, Lily and Jack who had been doing a LOT of deep frying and they saved the grease for me! All 50 gallons of it!

The home stretch

So, the entire time I was driving across the midwest I have been dreaming about finding an undammed river full of clear, sparkling water, maybe with some nice rocks to lie on, a little bit of shade and not too close to a lumber mill. In Montana and Wyoming I have been wondering when I will see stunning mountain vistas and breath in the aroma of the evergreen forests. Well, turns out I had to wait to get home to BC for all that. Shortly after crossing the Columbia river and then the border into Grand Forks, BC I saw the rivers I was looking for all around me. I stopped to swim in water 10 feet deep and so clear you could see the bottom, lined with smooth rocks and a sandy bottom. Basically, I found the best swimming hole, ever.