1st Score, Leaving Baltimore

Sat, June 5, Yonkers, NY: I wake up early & go with my Dad to Harpo's (mechanic) in Tuckahoe, NY. Him & his son know & love Vanagons. We went to ask them if they had some extenders for the tire air valves, because my Dad says that it isn't easy to put air into the tires, given the size of the tire walls & the way the hubcaps are. We went there instead of an autopart store because my Dad had been talking to them a bunch, so thought he would go see if they had them, give them some business.
They don't have extra extenders, but my Dad noticed that a brakelight had gone out right as we were pulling in. Got a new brake light. Also got an oil change, because I needed it. Then, drove to Baltimore.

Drove on veggie the whole way, and run out about 20min before Balto. That was a 4 hour trip. So, it drove for 5 hours on veggie -- except Gregg had test driven it on veggie for about an hour before I got it, so...It drives over 5hrs on a tank of straight veggie. (Not waste.)

In Balto, I do some things...At one point, I stop at someone's job to give them a hug goodbye. Walking out, I look around and say to myself, "Let's get some oil." I try a Nepalese/Indian place, and the bartender didn't really speak
--I was just typing a lot, and lost it all.........so, here is a curt continuation, for now!:
Bartender didn't really speak English, I seemed to make him nervous, so I left after trying to talk with him.
Went to another Indian place within sight. There were no customers there. There was a guy behind the bar doing paperwork and a guy sitting at the bar with whom I chat with for 25 minutes. He asked me what I wanted it for, and I told him. "Won't it smoke?", he first asked. He soon after said, "How much you pay me for it." I smiled & said "Noooo, you give it to me for free!". I didn't know if I was talking to someone who could actually have any say/authority in granting me their oil. Bossman kind of "yelled" at him a couple of times, I guess for talking to me & sitting at the bar & not doing his job. He explained that people take their oil, 'we do not pay them, they do not pay us, but there is an arrangement'. But, for this one time, he said I could take oil, because he liked what I was doing. He was given a bag of food to deliver, and he walked me around back to the barrel. It felt empty, I took the top off and there was a low level. He said it was recently emptied. I picked up a plastic take-out container from the ground, scooped some up. It was a light brown and you could see through it. I thought, "Excellent!". I asked Gregg (who converted Patience) what I should be looking for. He said if you had a baster & took a sample, you would want to be able to see through it. You don't want it murky -- cloudy. Well, this wasn't murky...You could see through it. The guy took his delivery & told me to do whatever. So, I unpacked everything Kylara had nicely packed in my trunk for me, in order to access the battery, where I would clip the Road Tote's power clips to. I got a small bungee cord & bungeed the dispenser pump handle tight, and stuck it in the veggie fuel hole. Then I held the suctioning end, removed the cap, flipped the motor switch on, lowered the suction end into the oil, and then turned a red switch on my end which controls intake -- on, or off. I switched that to open the line, and the oil started to move through the hose at a good speed. I knew that my tank could hold 15gal, and that there was nowhere near 15gal in the barrel I was sucking from, so I wasn't concerned about knowing when to stop. I did stop when I felt I was too close to the bottom...Don't want that bottom crud. I "stopped" by shutting the red switch valve off, then lifting the curlicued hose up so that all the oil would pass through the filter, then shut the motor off. This was, I don't know, a bit over 1 minute.

I packed the van back up, started the car, drove away on diesel, excitedly watching the fuel gauge...Half a tank! (7.5ish gallons) I was very pleased with this first solo score.

I used it for a bit while driving downtown, but then purged & ran on diesel til we hit the highway for the night. We drove for 2.5 hours on the highway. :) Thanks, all contributors.

(I didn't seek out more oil because we were way late. This first leg of the trip is really the only time where I feel time is important, for a few reasons. Going across Canada, time does not matter.)

I'm done blogging for the night, but today, 6/7, was my 2nd score, on the 1st try since my last procurement. And very successful! My veggie tank is 7/8 full, and I have 2 more cubies in the car of more oil. It isn't as good as the first oil, but I believe it is good enough.

And, I'm really going to keep this about mechanics....but yesterday we saw one of a pair of Fisher Cats bound across the road, and tonight, Lisa taught me how to make sushi. Also, we thought it was a bobcat, or something, but we described the creature to Bill Castle at Pollywogg yesterday, he informed us: "You're not going to believe it, but they're called Fisher Cats."