Hoping to fuel trip to top
On a lighter note, the Mercury News brings us this story
Hoping to fuel a trip to top
SOYBEAN OIL FEEDS CAR ON WAY TO CAMPAIGN
By Truong Phuoc Khᮨ
Mercury News
A pair of vegans from Mountain View and Santa Cruz ate fruits and grains and fed their car soybean oil for what must be one of the healthiest cross-country trips ever from Palo Alto to Cleveland, Ohio.
Soy. Good for the body. Good for the car.
``We proved you could actually travel across the country on soybean oil,'' said Michael McCarthy of Mountain View.
But . . . Why?
McCarthy, 42, and a friend, Moriah-Melin Whoolilurie, of Santa Cruz, are passionate, unequivocal supporters of Dennis Kucinich, a Democratic presidential candidate from Ohio. They wanted to volunteer in the congressman's campaign.
Their vehicle of choice was McCarthy's 1982 diesel engine Mercedes. It runs on biodiesel -- a fuel made from soybean oil that has undergone a chemical process.
Compared with regular diesel, the fuel emits nearly half the chemicals that contribute to ozone pollution, according to the National Biodiesel Board.
The ecofriendly duo departed from Stanford last Wednesday and reached Kucinich's campaign headquarters Saturday, 3 1/2 days and about 2,400 miles later. They took the long way, with many detours as they eschewed stops at gas stations for farms that sold biodiesel.
``The fact we had to travel a little bit off route,'' said Whoolilurie, 24, ``it gave us an even deeper appreciation for what we're doing.''
They slept in the desert in Nevada and in the cornfields of Nebraska.
In Cheyenne, Wyo., they got off I-80 to drive two hours south to Boulder, Colo. -- the nearest soy re-fill -- then two hours back up, making it a four-hour detour.
``It doesn't always come so easy sometimes when you want to help our mother Earth,'' Whoolilurie said.
McCarthy is a former war photographer from England; Whoolilurie is a midwife who performs in a song-and-dance act with her husband under their stage name, ``Whoolilicious and Deeelicious.''
Which brings the topic back to . . . soybeans.
Biodiesel is clean, efficient and smells good, McCarthy said.
``If you stick your nose to the tail pipe, it has a slight smell of a chip fryer,'' said McCarthy, a hard-core vegan who eats only raw food. ``It's kind of a smell that makes you hungry.''
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