Carrick's Interview with Ed Begley, Jr.

Hi friends,

Today Carrick and I headed for Hollywood, for an interview and personal tour of Ed Begley Jr.'s green home. Things got off to a bit of a rocky start when we were about to head out for the interview and found our left front tire flat as a pancake! No spare tire, that's where the vegetable oil tank goes. Luckily I planned ahead and brought a little air compressor that plugs into the car. I couldn't find what the problem was but I've been having to add air to the tire for the last several days. We got to Ed's house with about 5 minutes to spare, even though we left with plenty of extra time, but that Los Angeles traffic is awful, even on a Saturday!



If you don't know, Ed Begley Jr. is an actor who has been in many TV shows and movies over the last few decades, and currently has a reality TV show called 'Living With Ed' about all the things he does in life and at home to be green, at times to the dismay of his wife! Ed has been widely recognized as one of, if not the most long-time, visible proponent in Hollywood of living an eco-friendly lifestyle.

Ed was very kind and generous, and Carrick got a great interview with him in his living room for 30 minutes, asking him all about what sustainability means and what we can all do as individuals. If you're going to talk sustainability, why not go right to the green guru himself? Unlike some famous people who promote going green, Ed actually walks the talk, big time. I emailed around as a long shot back in the fall to see if we could meet him and to my surprise he emailed back promptly and invited us over! After the interview Ed gave a tour of his house to a visiting group, with Carrick in the lead! Ed's home is a modest ranch house in a neighborhood of Hollywood, and he did all the retrofits he could to make it eco-friendly. It was great to spend some time with him this afternoon!

When we returned to the car the tire was, again, flat as a pancake. I was so embarrassed but took out my little air compressor and inflated the tire again, making lots of noise in this quiet little neighborhood. Ed probably was looking out the window wondering what the heck all that noise was! I took a picture so that I could laugh at myself later...



Once again thanks to the GPS, I quickly located a tire shop a few blocks away from Ed's house and drove over for a quick tire replacement! At least I don't have to worry about that any more...

Two more reader questions today:
Question: How do you keep the school truant officers/CPS, who are notorious for insisting via force that their way of life is the best way of life for every child (i.e. full days indoors at government schools, sleeping in a non-moveable house every night, etc), from interfering?
Answer: So far nobody along the journey has given us any trouble about our kids being out of school. We homeschool our kids, and our cross-country journey has been one big schooling adventure! Forget geography books, they're experiencing it! I can't imagine we will encounter any trouble with truancy officers but I'll let you know if we do!

Question: OMG, you guys are having such an adventure! So many experiences! How do you process it all?
Answer: Hmm...well, for starters we have lots of time sitting in the car to contemplate our adventures! We've been taking lots of pictures along the way, and writing these email updates have been a great record of our project. Once we've done our interviews we put the video tape in the bag and get ready for the next one, and the tape will stay in the bag until we get home and ready to edit. It's all going by so quickly but we're continuing to have so much success with our interviews and destinations.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Our visit at Tesla Motors in Los Angeles

Hi friends,

Greetings from Los Angeles! Here's our latest update:

Yesterday we spent the day at the San Diego Zoo, with passes given to us from some generous UU folks there. The zoo was fantastic and the kids were wide-eyed the whole time! Last night Carrick and I gave a presentation at the First UU Church in San Diego to a fun crowd and enjoyed visiting and some yummy vegan food before and after.

Today we did a lot of video work, starting at the Rainbow Material Recovery Facility in Huntington Beach outside of Los Angeles. We got the grand tour of the facility where they take all residential and commercial trash from the area and sort everything with machines and manually to pull out all the recycling and food waste. The state of California passed a law that waste haulers had to reduce the amount of trash going to the landfill by 50% and the sorting facilities were the way to do it. Now they are considering upping it to 75% and eventually 100%! Also interesting was that in Massachusetts our waste disposal is about 4 times more expensive than here, so switching to this system would be very profitable.



Next stop was at the Tesla showroom in Los Angeles, to interview Chelsea Sexton, who some of you might know as the star of the movie 'Who Killed the Electric Car?'. That documentary came out several years ago and profiled the rise and fall of GM's electric car from the 1990s, and Chelsea was a salesperson for that car who moved on to become a big advocate for electric cars in government and industry. Carrick talked to Chelsea about electric cars and their benefits, and their role in the future of the auto industry.

It turns out that Chelsea's husband Bob is the service manager at Tesla Motors, which makes the all-electric Tesla Roadster and upcoming all-electric sedan. Bob took Carrick and me out for a ride in a roadster and we were both absolutely blown away. That is one incredible ride - the acceleration is just unbelievable! It's like a high-speed roller coaster!

We have two reader questions today:
Question: This trips focus is to help educate the youth of America about Green living and Technology. How does that change your filming style, your eye for content, knowing your goal audience will be children?
Answer: Sometimes I have to remind the people we are interviewing to keep the answers general and not get too technical. Some of the people we've filmed so far are on the engineering end and it's easy for them to get too technical. What I'm trying to do is make 5-minute videos that provide a general overview that would be interesting for kids, but also for adults too. Our Holy Name wind turbine video is a good example of that.

Question: A humorous road anecdote?
Answer: One funny thing that comes to mind is when we were driving through Mississippi. We pulled off the highway to get something out of the cargo carrier on the roof, which has two little padlocks to keep it secure. I pulled out what we needed and left the set of keys on the roof and drove off down the highway, which to our horror and amazement we found somehow wedged into the roof frame! What are the chances, really?

More filming tomorrow in Los Angeles, with more stories to tell I'm sure.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Big Solar and Big Hydro!

Hi friends,

We just hit our half-way mark tonight as we arrived at Chula Vista, California, which is just south of San Diego. We've officially gone coast to coast and just passed 5,000 miles on the trip odometer. We also experienced the lovely 108 degree heat in the Mojave Desert this afternoon as we stopped to stretch our legs!

On Monday we stopped to gawk at the Grand Canyon, because of course you can't go through Arizona without seeing the Grand Canyon! We parked and walked along the south rim trail at the top for a while, then returned to the car to find people taking pictures of the Beetle and getting some video. Everywhere we go people love to ask about the car!

Yesterday we drove to visit the Hoover Dam in Nevada, which is one of the largest hydroelectric dams in the U.S. I figured if you're going to make a video about hydroelectric dams in the U.S., it's hard to beat the Hoover Dam for sheer size and magnificence! We got some interview time with one of the tour guides at the dam, then we all took the official tour and got lots of great video. The dam generates 2,080 megawatts (the big wind turbine at Holy Name High School in Worcester, Massachusetts that we made a video about generates 2/3 of a megawatt, just for a comparison) We had to get special permission to film at Hoover Dam and we were grateful to have some one-on-one time with the tour guide for an interview - a unique opportunity that will make a great video!

Last night we drove the Beetle down Las Vegas Boulevard to check out "the strip" all lit up and teeming with people. I can see where all that power from Hoover Dam goes to... It was great to cruise the strip, veggie-style, and we got many waves and thumbs-up as we drove along taking in the sights.

Today we got a very special tour of Nevada Solar One, which is a concentrated solar power facility in Boulder City. It's rows and rows of long mirrored troughs with a pipe suspended overhead, and the sun reflects off the mirrored troughs, concentrated on the overhead pipe. The liquid in the pipe is heated to 750 degrees from the intense sunlight and is piped to a steam generator to run a turbine. Nevada Solar One generates about 70 megawatts, and they estimate that 10 square miles of concentrated solar power would generate enough electricity to power the entire U.S.! It's a sight to behold, being among the rows and rows of giant mirrored troughs. Nevada Solar One is not open to public tours, but we managed to get a personal tour with the plant manager, who took us out to the field and talked with Carrick about concentrated solar power. This video will be a great example of highlighting a proven renewable technology that can be scaled up on a massive level, but yet few people have heard of it.

We were forewarned by someone last night that California is a little nutty about people driving their cars on vegetable oil, and because of our stickers on the car we might get pulled over and fined. The state is especially concerned that veggie car drivers are not paying their road fuel taxes and they will charge a fine based on how much un-taxed fuel they estimated you've used. How on earth can they figure that out? How could they even prove that I am running veg oil anyway? The stickers are staying put and I'll take my chances thanks!

One of our interviews have made it into a podcast! I passed along the audio from our interview with Cliff Etheridge from the wind farm in Roscoe, Texas to Stephen Lacey at the Inside Renewable Energy podcast, and he was able to use it in this week's show! You can listen to the show by clicking this link (or visit www.renewableenergyworld.com and follow the podcast links) It will probably be a few months before our video is ready so here is a sneak preview, plus it's Carrick's first interview on a podcast!

We've had a few interview requests denied after many emails and phone calls. We were hoping to visit Aptera Motors while in San Diego but the official word is no. With plans to distribute our eco-video series to schools nationally, it's kind of hard to believe it's not worth just*a*little of their time for that kind of audience. I may be able to use some stock footage but that's not very interesting. While I will still probably mention the companies, I won't be able to profile them in their own videos as planned.


Reader question: What keeps your younger son (Gareth) going on this trip, being probably too young to be stimulated by all the environmental technology questions you and Carrick are pursuing?
Answer: Gareth (age 6) has joined us for some of the tours where there are interesting things to see, but otherwise Jen takes him out to walk around or visit a playground, or sometimes they hang out with the Macbook inside where it's nice and cool, and poke around online.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Video Stops in Arizona

Hi friends,

Our latest videos were a bit of a surprise!

We drove to Flagstaff, Arizona on Thursday and discovered once we arrived that one of our hosts for the night works at Southwest Windpower (www.WindEnergy.com), and he invited us to come to the factory for a tour. Couldn't turn that down! Southwest Windpower makes residential wind turbines, a much smaller scale than those we saw at the Roscoe wind farm! Their best-known wind turbine is the Skystream model, which is an all-in-one unit that includes the mounting pole, turbine, and inverter, which makes it easier to get up and running. Carrick got the guided tour of the factory and saw how they make small wind turbines, a real unexpected treat!

From Flagstaff we drove down to the Scottsdale Water Campus for a last-minute video about water recycling. The crude but descriptive term would be 'toilet-to-tap'...the city of Scottsdale takes the city wastewater (yes, including what we flush down the toilet) and filters it many times over then injects it back into the ground, which eventually ends up back into the water table, which eventually ends up in the municipal water supply....recycling at it's best! The southwest region has limited water resources so water conservation here is especially important! It was last-minute because until the day before we didn't know for sure whether we'd be able to come and get a tour! We got to see the different stages of filtering and talk about why water conservation is so important.

For the next few days we are doing some traveling and visiting, with our next two videos in the Las Vegas area.

READER QUESTION: Are you finding it easy for the whole family to eat
healthy on the road? I mean, it's easy at home when you have access
to good food, but while traveling through McDonald-land it must be
tough.
We're using the website www.VegDining.com to help us find healthy places to eat along the way - not too many vegan options at Waffle House! VegDining has listings of veggie restaurants all over the country. When internet access has been scarce we've used the GPS to help us find a veggie restaurant, which has a much more limited list but it's worked. Taco Bell works in a pinch with some bean burritos, but at best it's just utility food.

There probably won't be much to report for the next few days, but I'll write again once we've made it through Las Vegas.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Wind Farms and Earthships

Hi friends,

Greetings from Albuquerque, New Mexico! We got here this afternoon and gave a presentation tonight at the UU church here in the city. It's beautiful landscape here, so much different from back home - the surroundings didn't really look TOO different until we got down to Louisiana, and since then we've crossed through long plains with less and less vegetation through Texas, then into New Mexico through beautiful mountains and deserts, driving alongside the Rio Grande. The houses have also changed a lot, with a lot more ranch houses, and in New Mexico a lot of adobe buildings (we even passed an adobe-front Wal-Mart).

So since we left Austin we've stopped at two more project locations that were just amazing and inspiring.

We left Austin Monday morning and traveled up to Roscoe, Texas, a small town west of Abilene that is hard to find on the map! Carrick interviewed Cliff Etheridge, who rallied the small town to bring in investors for a large wind farm, and when the project is finished over the next two years it will be the largest wind farm in the world. Just to stand in the field of turbines and turn 360 degrees surrounded by them everywhere was an amazing sight. Mr. Etheridge's story is so inspiring - he is a hero, one individual who has accomplished something amazing, though he is humble as it gets. I can't wait to get to work on the Roscoe video when we return. Just a quick tidbit, standing in a field of several hundred wind turbines, they barely make a whisper, and I didn't see any dead birds on the ground!

We went on from there to Lubbock, Texas where we gave a presentation at the UU church after a great vegan potluck!

Tuesday we arrived in Taos, a small city in northern New Mexico, where we stayed overnight in an earthship. A what? Earthships are self-sustaining houses made from different renewable and waste materials: most prominently 3 of the 4 walls are made from used tires filled and rammed with dirt, and the walls are covered with adobe and cement. These are truly amazing and beautiful houses, and it makes our house in Massachusetts seem so unnatural and designed against nature instead of with it. I'll have to upload some pics we took of the earthships we visited so you can see what I mean. They rent them out for overnight stays so we got to experience living in an earthship and this morning we got a tour of an earthship that was recently built, all on video. There are so many unique elements it will be hard to edit the video down to 5 minutes - I may have to stretch that one out a bit... Carrick and I have toured zero-energy homes at the Solar Decathlon that rely heavily on technology to be off-grid and self-sustaining, but earthships are a different, more natural approach.

Car trouble strikes! Well, not that dramatic really, but I noticed for the last two days the Beetle had hesitation starting and I wanted to get it fixed before we ended up stranded somewhere (out here you can REALLY get stranded, no joke) plus we needed an oil change, so we stopped by the VW dealer here in Albuquerque who of course found other problems too. $800 later we got the car back, a lot more than I was expecting, but left unchecked we could have found ourselves in big trouble. Ugh. I'm grateful at least that they were able to fit us in on same-day notice so we can be on our way tomorrow.

READER QUESTION:
As you ride around and visit all these facilities, does it seem more likely or less likely to you that we could get all our energy from renewables?
Well, we still have the majority of renewable energy sites yet to visit, and I've been a big proponent of being able to produce all the electricity we need from renewables. I do wish people could have stood where I was in Roscoe to experience the wind farm first-hand, and I think if people saw how they looked (graceful and majestic) and heard how quiet they were (right in the middle of hundreds of turbines), there would be far fewer people who are opposed to them. There are just so few chances for people to personally experience that in this country. Although we didn't get to see the wave power buoy off the New Jersey coast, the stats from the Ocean Power Technolgies website show that harnessing wave power in select areas around the world could provide twice as much electricity as the world consumes. I hope that our eco-video series will show people the solutions that exist, and get more people asking 'why can't we do that more?' because the answer is usually that we can if people learn more about it and start making it happen.

Be well,
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Batty in Austin, TX

Hi friends,

It's been several days since the last update so I wanted to let you know our latest news. We've been in Austin, TX for a few days and are heading out tomorrow morning for our interview in Roscoe, TX at a wind farm then on to Lubbock to stay the night with hosts. Here's a review of the last several days:

On Thursday, we did visit the BuildSmart Center in New Orleans, which is a training center for contractors and homeowners about rebuilding with green, sustainable materials and renewable energy. We met with Larry Haines of Road Home Builders, a company that is building new green homes in the city; Larry did a walk-through with Carrick of the different green building materials and energy conservation measures that are on display at the BuildSmart Center. We also got the address of a few zero-energy homes that were built in the hardest-hit area of the city from the hurricane, so we went down to see the exterior and got some more video there. Zero-energy homes are designed to produce as much energy as they use, in this case using solar electric panels and solar hot water panels on the roofs. On Thursday night Carrick and I gave a presentation at the UU Community Church to a fun group - their church had to be torn down due to the hurricane damage but they like others in New Orleans have strong spirit and will rebuild.

We traveled on Friday to tour the Verenium plant in Jennings, Louisiana, which is the test and demonstration site for their method of producing cellulosic ethanol. They use different feedstocks, such as sugarcane waste, to create ethanol fuel in a process very similar to brewing beer, working to produce cellulosic ethanol in quantities much greater and much more efficiently than corn. Carrick got a guided tour of the demonstration plant and we got some great video of the process. It's very much a working demonstration site and we had to wear the hardhats, and eye and ear protection, and I don't think it's a place that the public and especially kids get to visit, so it was a big deal to get the whole guided tour! We traveled on in the afternoon through Houston then out to Austin, where we've been over the weekend.

Saturday we were planning to head south to visit San Antonio and get some shots for our video about the upcoming biogas facility, which will be the first municipal sewage treatment plant in the U.S. to capture methane gas from the solids (or, eh, poop) and turn it into natural gas to run in city vehicles. Unfortunately for us there was a torrential downpour in the afternoon and most of what we were going to visit there (including the Alamo) is outside, so we stayed in Austin for a rainy afternoon. The company that is developing the biogas plant in San Antonio, Ameresco, is a Massachusetts-based company so we can still get an interview when we come home and put together a video profile with that.

Today we gave a presentation at the UU church here in Austin then got some video in the city for our Green City Spotlight of Austin. We are traveling through 6 of the Top 10 Greenest Cities in America on our journey, so we are making a Green City Spotlight video for each city we visit, showing what they are doing to be more sustainable cities and earn their spot in the Top 10! Austin has some great examples that we visited today, including their city hall that has a green roof, solar panels, was made from local materials, etc. The city owns the municipal power company, Austin Energy, which is perhaps the most progressive electric utility company in the nation with the highest mix of renewable energy. They have many programs to encourage homeowners to conserve energy and promote renewables. One very unique and fun green aspect of Austin is the Congress Avenue Bridge, underneath which is host to the largest urban bat population in the U.S., over 1.5 million bats! At dusk every night they come FLOODING out from under the bridge to get some dinner, and to stand on the bridge and see them all come out is just amazing. What a sight! The smell was not so amazing....but there were just clouds of bats for about 10 minutes coming out from under the bridge.

TRIP STATS: 2,769 miles driven so far, we've already lost track of how many hours on the road total.

READER QUESTION: we have two this time!
Are you getting any press? It seems like such a good story. It should be turning up in people's newspapers when you are in town. ANSWER: we haven't been getting press, but I haven't been going after that either. We just don't have enough time and reliable internet access to coordinate that. It's been all I can do to keep on top of our video schedule and return emails, I really can't.
Reader Question: What's the downside to the fuel getting too hot? What is heating it up? ANSWER: This is in response to my post about how using the A/C while using veg oil gets the oil too hot, on hot days. The short answer is that the engine isn't designed to deal with fuel that gets too hot and could cause damage - diesel never gets too hot but veg oil can. I have a temperature sensor as part of the veggie system that tells me the temps of the veg oil and I get worried when it gets over 190 degrees F, so we shut off the A/C and roll down the windows, to let the oil cool down some. The veg oil system heats the oil with radiator fluid from the engine, and when the engine gets hot from running A/C in a car with a big, non-aerodynamic roof rack on top, the coolant gets hot and then the oil gets real hot. If the temps get too hot it can literally cook the injection pump, and at $1000 just for a rebuilt pump I don't want to have that problem.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

From The Big Easy

friends,

Greetings from New Orleans!

Our internet access has continued to be spotty so I haven't sent an update in several days, but we've been traveling a lot and we haven't had any video stops until now anyway. We arrived in New Orleans yesterday afternoon - what a beautiful city and an amazing spirit! There were many people back home who just thought people here were crazy for coming back to rebuild after Hurricane Katrina, since it's so vulnerable. It's such a wonderful place with so much history; I get a better appreciation for why people are rebuilding.

We are stopping by the Build Smart Center this afternoon to interview one of the green builders in the city. There is a big effort to rebuild using green, sustainable building products and techniques, and the Build Smart Center holds seminars and training for teaching contractors who are rebuilding the homes here. Although Katrina was devastating to the area it gave a chance for introducing green home materials and renewable energy, and there are some zero-energy homes being built now. We'll meet up with the builder this afternoon to learn more and get some video. The most dramatically hit area in the city is the Lower 9th Ward and the word we got was that many of the residents there are tired of people with cameras coming through to gawk at their misfortune, so I don't think we'll drive through with cameras rolling, to respect the folks there.

We found out that while we're driving through the heat with the vegetable oil system on, using the air conditioner in the car really heats up the engine, a little too hot for my comfort. We turn it on for a while then when I see the fuel temps get too hot (in my opinion anyway) then I turn it off for a while. Not very convenient. When we get to Arizona and it's over 100 degrees then it will REALLY get interesting. Usually the problem in New England is getting the veg oil HOT enough in the cold climate, so this is a new challenge. We planned this trip to go through the south in May so it wouldn't be too hot, but so much for those plans!

READER QUESTION: Where do you get your vegetable oil on the road?
There are conversion shops in most major cities that do conversions for diesel cars and trucks, and usually they sell filtered veg oil. We stopped at a place in Memphis that gave us 28 gallons - 13 gallons in the tank and an extra 15 gallons in our 3 containers we're carrying. It's been as easy as a quick Google search for 'WVO (waste vegetable oil) Memphis' or whatever city we're coming to. Next stop for oil is in Austin.

If you have a reader question, please don't hesitate to ask!

Like I said in an earlier message, most of our video stops are on the west coast, but we have some along the way before we get there. I'll send more messages intermittently while we're driving and when we have internet access.

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

Pennsylvania, New Jersey, Washington DC

Hi friends,

We've been unable to spend much time on the internet over the last few days, but all has been well and I wanted to update you on our progress!

Tuesday, May 5 we spent the day in Neffs, Pennsylvania with our friends, and I spent a few hours on the phone trying to confirm interviews and making sure everything is all set for the next several weeks.

Wednesday, May 6 we drove to the beach in Asbury Park, New Jersey in the afternoon for some video at the coast. One of our videos will be focused on power from waves, and there is a wave power buoy off the coast of New Jersey that has been successful in proving the technology works. It turns out that there is enough potential on the coasts with wave energy to power the entire world two times over. Not bad. We gave a presentation that night at the UU church in Princeton, NJ.


Thursday, May 7 was a busy day! We visited Terracycle in the morning, touring their factory where they make products out of recycled materials. They're in Trenton, NJ, and we saw where the make "compost tea" for plant fertilizer, bags made out of recycled juice containers, and "techno-vomit"...hmmm....how do I explain that one? Guess you'll have to wait for the video. In the afternoon we drove down to Washington DC to visit the headquarters of Green America (formerly CoOp America) and spoke with sustainability guru Todd Larsen about the work Green America does to advocate fair trade, green collar jobs, and a greener America!

Friday, May 8, today, we spent some time in Virginia visiting my 95-year-old uncle and more time in Washington DC, then up to Cedar Lane UU church in Bethesda, Maryland for a presentation. Cedar Lane UU is the 3rd largest UU church in the U.S., so I'm told. Tomorrow we have a long drive from Chevy Chase Maryland, where we are staying tonight, to Nashville, TN.

READER QUESTIONS! How are you guys holding up stuffed into the Beetle? Do you have a better understanding of family closeness yet? How is the roof rack holding up?
Well, it's not the most spaceous way to travel, but it's working out OK so far. Having the roof rack is a big help - that's where we're putting all of our luggage, and the trunk is full of vegetable oil containers and the camera equipment. We definitely feel some drag from the roof rack and it's affecting the mileage, but I expected that. The kids have plenty to do so they're not getting too bored with the driving yet.

Many many thanks to the inventor of the GPS! That thing is absolutely wonderful, just amazing. I can't imagine doing this trip without it. Ours is a Magellan and has a nice female voice; we have named her Maggie!

Be well,
Colin
--
Our Renewable Nation, A Cross-Country Eco-Video Adventure
www.OurRenewableNation.org

First Day on the Road!

Hi friends,

We left today at noon on our cross-country eco-video journey and have arrived at our first destination, Neffs Pennsylvania. Neffs is a small town in eastern Pennsylvania, outside of Allentown and Bethlehem. Some long-time friends offered to host us tonight and tomorrow before we begin the video work. I just picked up the borrowed video equipment a few days ago so I need a day to get it set up and get more familiar with it, before we begin in earnest!

I should go over the timeline of our project, so you all know more what to expect. We are stopping at locations over the next several weeks as we travel the southern route across the U.S., where we have some interviews and video to shoot. The majority of our videos will be shot in California at the end of May and early June, then we have a number of video destinations as we return via the northern route. We have a concentration of videos to shoot in the New England area once we return in the end of June.

I uploaded Carrick's segment from the Bonnie Hunt Show on Earth Day:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=qe1eBJWiom4

I didn't end up seeing this until last week - well, I saw it live but not what aired. She asked more questions than what you see here but it was edited down.

Here are some photos from our first day on the road:

From Our Renewable Nation

From Our Renewable Nation

From Our Renewable Nation

We drove 300 miles in 5 1/2 hours, played the license plate game for a while then the kids watched some episodes of Mr. Bean. It was a rainy drive but no traffic so we can't complain.

Time for bed!
Colin
www.OurRenewableNation.org