Urban colloquialisms really do it for me. A ways back there was a push to classify a new language “ebonics”. It struck me as a little bit silly because it's not just African Americans who speak what would have been called ebonics. Further, within said language the changing the grammatical structure is so haphazard and varies to such a degree from place to place that it's really more a matter of an extended vocabulary. So my personal term is urban colloquialisms. It's a very cool thing because in many cases words are created where standard English falls off or sometimes terms are coined that very easily explain something that otherwise might have taken a full sentence. “Hood rich” for instance basically explains the idea of overextending one's credit. You might make make very little money or you might make decent money but no matter what you live in a manner that makes your finances hand to mouth. “The E Class on E”, driving a new Mercedes but keeping the gas tank 1/4 full. Running the car on vegetable oil always reminds me of this saying because there's not a huge reason to keep my diesel tank full and it's usually pretty close to empty. The major difference of course is that my Mercedes doesn't involve payments, it's an S Class (not an E Class) and instead of an “E” marking an empty tank there's an “R”. Originally my thought was that the dominant German word for empty started with an R but the car was bought before Google Translate was such an easy tool. Now I'm pretty sure it stands for either “refuel” or Mercedes engineers love the Jetsons and call empty "rempty" in the dog's honor. At any rate, for most of my drive from Florida the Veggiewagen and I have been riding with the needle either near or on R.

About a week ago a few buddies of mine flew out here. Since linking up the trip has been much more adventurous. They rented a Jeep which has enabled us to leave the Benz behind at times and do some back country camping. It's also provided both a fail safe in terms of having an extra car and a juxtaposition in the sense of being able to see how I live from other people's view point. The other day's drive was particularly interesting. It was gorgeous scenery as always but those mountain climbs seem to be catching up to the car. The veggie oil system doesn't work as well and after a few hours or spirited driving I started to lose power. In Florida where there are no hills this is a sign to switch back to diesel. Here it might just mean the car is climbing a grade that's imperceptible to the driver. Given my proclivity to avoid using diesel and being very into jamming out to some 90s music at the time my assumption was that the car was climbing up a mountain. Apparently that wasn't the case. Starved of fuel, the engine died on me. I switched back to diesel and very stupidly turned the car off while still rolling so as to try and restart it. The wheel locked up and the car and I nearly ended up hitting the railing on the side of the road. Luckily it didn't play out that way.

To compound issues there are two parts which might or might not be construed as necessary that were flat out broken at the time. One pertains to the veggie system, the other is a stock part on the car. For my purposes at least ONE would make life a lot easier and more stress free. Long story short, my only option was to wait for my friends to catch up in the Jeep and then chug on the starter until the engine purged itself of air and started. After they arrived my plan went into action. The first bad sign was that the battery died. This was a part of my plan though so we simply connected the two vehicles via jumper cables and continued trying to start the car. Still nothing. Finally I relented to our more cautious comrade's take on the situation and we pushed the 4,500lbs of German steel and Nylon's life off of the main road onto a very conveniently located side road. At this point the mad scientist driveway mechanic side of me came out in full force.

The other nice thing about having more people along for the ride is that when it comes to camping issues and car issues two heads are better than one and four heads are better yet. Somehow the topic of fuel level came up and I responded that I'd been riding on R for a few hundred miles. “Haha. Dog, you ran out of diesel”. Duh! So wrapped up in the problems on the veggie side the possibility that running out of diesel might coincide with other problems wasn't prominent in my mind. Clearly this was the ticket.

The car had decided to break down in an extremely fortuitous spot. First, we were neither climbing nor descending a mountain. Secondly we had just exited a blind curve. Third there was a little road on the left to push the car onto. However, the coup de gras was that on that little road was... a fuel processing plant! You have to understand how well we're doing at getting away from society. Cell phone service is a more often non-existent than usable. The closest gas station was at least thirty miles. This was essentially parachuting out of a crashing plane into a desert oasis. One of my friends and I trekked through their gates past haz-mat combustible signage and asked the people working on their trucks if they by chance had any diesel or kerosene we could purchase off of them. Whatever they were collecting or refining wouldn't run my car but the work trucks were filled up on the company's dime and they were willing to let me siphon some out at no charge. After a mouthful of diesel and profuse thanks we walked away five gallons of fuel richer.

There was still no guarantee that the car would start. The Achilles heel of running vegetable oil is a very complex part called an injector pump and the symptoms were vaguely similar to a dying IP. While in the throes of jerry rigging mechanics a gleaming white pickup truck rode up on use. The window rolled down and from a nicely air conditioned interior the gentleman driving asked if I needed a hand. The truck had actually ridden past us before and it seemed as if he had gone pretty far out of his way to help us. A simple no would have been a skosh rude. The truck was a diesel and we were in Wyoming so the guy was very likely to have a decent grasp of automotive mechanics. Thus, I went into the entire explanation of running the car on WVO and driving from Florida and our backpacking adventure and siphoning the diesel and the whole nine yards. Looking over at my Reagan era mechanical steed he with no irony said “you have more balls than I do”. My internal response was caught by my filter before it came out but it was a pretty apt description of the situation. “It's either balls or stupidity, time will tell”. The car started running within a few minutes and amid some congratulations we convoyed off to Dinosaur National Monument.  

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