day 1

Blog post Day 1 April 22,

What a wild first day!!

Separating from Palo Alto was long, sweet and emotionally very intense.  My daughter Lucy tore my heart out as we continued to try to leave.  

We rolled away about 10:30 and went about 5 miles before Catherine fell off her bike going through a bike gate.  Fortunately, she was going slow and there was no damage.

Forty five minutes later we had the first of two flat tires.  They were both on the OHM and we suspect that the tubes were faulty.  That problem is now fixed!

We rolled into our night spot around 5 and found a flat spot for the vehicle and two tents.  

Ray Camaano and Rob Ferber talked to us about their work with their electric drive system for motor scooters.  The potential for this project is incredible since the Chinese government is requiring the use of good quality electric scooters and these guys have the drive trains and the relationships in China and other parts of Asia that they need to get high quality, high performance scooters on the road.

Michael and I visited here almost 2 years ago and Ray's shop was quiet clean and tidy.  Now, it is full of people working late into the night and the excitement and commitment is palpable.

Jeff Litton, a young documentary film maker appeared yesterday morning and joined us for the day and is still with us this morning (day 2).  He is completely delightful and I wish he could stay with the journey.

Brother Michael rode with us yesterday and will return to Palo Alto today.  We'll miss him.

Dave and John are right into the spirit of this ride and adding their passions and curiosity to the adventure.

Sean seems to be having a blast.  He's a very competent driver and mechanic and a delight to be with.  Both he and Dave are quitting smoking together and I hope they are successful.

Catherine is doing great.  She rode the whole day, got a little nap in a park in San Jose and helped calm my jangled nerves last night with a bedside story.  

I only rode half the day yesterday.  I wanted Dave to ride and I was feeling pretty worn out both physically from all the preparation and emotionally from leaving my family.  

As a night cap, we went down to check on our batteries and discovered that they weren't charging fully.  We took a charger apart and Rob was able to diagnose the problem, tore 6 chargers apart, changed some setting that made them fully charge the batteries and put them all back together.  What luck to have Rob who is one of the few people on this planet who could figure out how to make the chargers work.

Today we ride to the Pinnacles where we will be down to our team of 5 until we get to Flagstaff.

Tomorrow we Ride!!

The nerves are a'tingling.
We are not ready but hopefully ready enough.  Unfortunately, today is filled with events leaving very little time for organizing.  We've come to the point where our actions have very little control over outcomes so we'll put this show on the road and see what happens!

The Latest Green Riders Video!

Less than 36 hours to departure! Here is the latest episode of "The Green Riders Videos"  showing us (Oliver and Catherine) practicing riding and talking at the same time! 

While we are on the road we hope to publish video shorts of our  experiences. Please subscribe to the Green Riders videos at youtube.com/user/TheGreenRidersVideos (click the yellow 'subscribe' button at YouTube.)

We got our first Mayor!

The two Earth Day events were a lot of fun yesterday.  Portola Valley was quite low key but I had a long conversation with a husband and wife who own a Zenn car that they just love. I also got a photo of Debbie Mytels from Acterra who has been a very supportive friend throughout the building of this ride.
I zipped over to the Woodside event which was at a spectacular setting on a private estate with perfect weather and great attendance.   Since I live in Woodside, it seemed appropriate to get a photo of the mayor on my bike after he had just given a speech about how Woodside is investing in sustainability via their planning department.  Mayor Dave Burow focused on water use as a big issue facing not only our town but the entire planet.  I hope there will be increased dedication to finding technological and behavioral ways of saving water.  There were exhibitors at the event who presented native low water landscapes as well as an exhibitor who had a high tech filtration system for grey water.   Both great ways to use the water we have more efficiently.

Two days left!

I feel like the harder part of this journey is almost over.
Putting together all the pieces over the last few months has been boring, confusing, thrilling and mostly very vague.  As April 22nd comes into focus, the past work will become part of project of rolling across the country.  It will be concrete.  Each mile will be closer to our next stop. We will finally be real to the gracious people who are going to share their lives and stories with us.  I'm also beginning to taste the fun and adventure ahead of us while really missing my family even before I've left.

Yesterday,  sister Catherine and I spend the day working on the trailer.  We got 3 of the 4 bikes installed safe and secure for when we have to carry them (hopefully mostly for our drive home from DC).  We installed hooks and nets and straps for all the stuff that we will be carrying.  I was delighted with how well the bikes fit in the trailer and how much room we have for a charging area for the batteries (almost a 2 foot square!!).  Today we will work on getting the van ready for living in and tonight I will meet the folks from PI to pick up our 4th vehicle.  Very last minute but not unexpected.
The photos show that my sister really does exist.  Her friends don't believe she is part of this because there are so few pictures of her.  So, if they read this, they will see she is really real!

Countdown Day 5 Saturday

Yesterday was rough.  I spent way too much time trying to rig the solar panel onto the roof of the trailer in a way that will make it easy to take down for demonstrations.  Lying in bed this morning, I couldn't get the image of the solar panel flying off of the roof of the trailer and at the very least, self-destructing.  So my new plan is to abandon the rooftop idea and just pull the panel out when we stop.  Anybody need the couple of extra holes that I put in the roof of the trailer??

I won't have time to post tonight.  Very busy day.
I'm heading off to two Earth Day events in our area.  The one in our Town I'm supposed to be helping at since I'm on the Town Committee that sponsors the event.   Oh, well.
My plan is to show up on my rig, talk to people (a lot of whom I will know), get them to sign our sustainability petition and recruit more followers with the goal of building the band of sustainability brothers and sisters.
Tonight we have a birthday, housewarming party for my mother at my sister's house about an hour south of here. (By car.)
The big news this week on the social network front is that we got this blog listed on Blogspot's website where they post monthly "Blogs of Note".  It was incredibly exciting to see our daily visits jump off the  chart.  Our graph looked like Al Gore's hockey stick chart that he uses to describe the increased CO2 in the atmosphere.
I'll take photos today of the events and post some photos tomorrow.

The Tesla and the Turbine - A fable

Once upon a time there were two brothers who both loved to fix things and solve problems.
The one brother lived in the heart of a very high tech wealthy community that relied on the development of exotic solutions to problems.  He built a beautiful and very expensive electric car that appealed to the small group of people who can afford fancy things and also support a sustainable future.
The other brother  lived in the heart of the country in a struggling agricultural community that was losing talented young people to the wealthier parts of the country.  This brother used pragmatic, clever solutions to solve problems.   He saw the economic and environmental advantages of bringing wind turbines on to farmers' land as a way of keeping the farms viable through lease income.  The turbines also reduced the   demand for dirty coal fired electricity generation.
The two brothers loved each other very much and loved to share their experiences about how their projects were going.
One day a reporter learned about the two brothers and saw a great story.  The reporter wanted to discover which brother was taking the right approach to solving problems.  He contacted the brothers and engaged them in long discussions about whose strategy was the best.  The two brothers refused to be drawn into a competitive match.
Try as he might, the reporter couldn't get the brothers to argue about who was solving problems the right way.  After many hours of effort, it finally dawned on the reporter that the two brothers were both solving problems in the right way.   So he wrote a story about that.

Moral:  There are as many solutions to solving problems as there are brothers.

So here's some things you can do to become a sustainability brother or sister.


Follow the blog and comment.
Help build a grassroots online community dedicated to sustainable solutions by describing what you're doing and/or what people you know are doing.
Invite us to power up at your house if you are on our route.  Especially if you generate your power with renewable energy.
Hop on a bike and see if you can keep up with us.
Help us organize an event in Washington DC that will get the attention of our policy makers.
Create your own engagement activity and tell us about it.