Greetings all,
Location: San Francisco’s Presidio district
Three days is way too long to not hear from the Kid. Since you last heard from us we have been staying with Nathan Keller (GAC ’02) in the Presidio district of San Francisco. After getting new brakes, the Kid was delighted to cross the famous Golden Gate bridge on his way to the next destination. For all its fame, the bridge has never known a finer moment. Highlights of our stay in the San Francisco area have included volunteering at Fort Baker’s Mission Blue Butterfly project pulling exotic invasive weed species as well as a vegan day of thanks celebration that left us with very handsome food babies.
We realize that this is a vaction of sorts, but as you’ve probably already guessed, it is a lot more than that for us. This project/journey is an experiment in lifestyle changes. Despite the problems we’ve encountered, Phil has expressed several times that it would be extremely difficult for him to return to transportation with a gasoline powered vehicle, and Aaron continues to search for VW diesel Rabbits every time we hit the library internet stations. Furthermore, this is an experiment in the use of alternative fuels – a system that is far from perfected because there is little federal or private funds being directed towards research in this area. Of course, it have been quite a rude awakening for us that such experiments can become so costly when things do not go completely as planned.
Given our unfortunate luck and in light of recent misfortunes, a number of people have offered help in bringing these greasy gringos out of their financial despair and over the rockies to their final destination…Home. Despite our initial pride (surprising we know) and hesitance to accept such generosity, we have formulated a way by which we can return home and further perpetuate the dream of grease-powered transport.
So, if you care to donate some spare change, cash, care packages, or spare VW Rabbit parts as some have suggested; and because we greatly support further research into veggie oil and alternative fuels, we have decided we would give 25 % of donations to Greaseworks. This is the biodiesel cooperative we discovered in Corvallis, OR when we were stuck there (www.grease-works.org). They were an excellent source of information during one of the Kid’s “hospital visits” and are actively working toward improving accessability and viability of plant-based alternative fuels.
If you would like to support the use of alternative fuels, bringing the Krisco Kids home without mountains of debt, or you just got a few good chuckles out of our veggie voyage field reports and our attempts at humor, any help would be greatly appreciated at Phil’s home address:
Krisco Kids
c/o Phil Graeve
514 Trail Ridge
Council Bluffs, IA 51503
(402) 319-6405
Headed for T-day at Sequoia National Park
Keep on Keepin’ on
Phil and Aaron