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January 18, 2008

Salem, Or - Eugene, Or
By Laurie White

I woke up feeling a little sad today, I only have 2 more days left! How can that have happened? I have had so much fun on my “eco-vacation” as I have been calling it!

We convince Bill to join us for a least a couple of days, hurray! We also are able to talk John (& Jack) into driving with us in John’s Range Rover to Eugene at least. Hurray!

We go outside at 830 hours (before breakfast) to set up the solar array to try to charge the car more. Bill then serves us a wonderful, healthy breakfast of oatmeal with cranberry sauce, cinnamon and yogurt, we love it!

We hitch the trailer back up and we all pack up to leave. We check the solar car’s batteries; it is so sunny that the batteries are fully charged at 1015 hours (10:15 A.M), hurray! Marcelo tells me that I have brought the sun with me and truly every day so far has been a beautiful, sunny day. I am elated and say a silent thanks to Mother Nature, whom I know is really responsible for our lovely weather!

We depart Salem at 1050 hours, Corvallis here we come! John rejoins us about 1115 hours. We are a trio again. Marcelo asks him to go ahead and take pictures of the car when he can.

We are going to Corvallis to see a group of Oregon State University (OSU) students who have built and piloted their own solar car for the North American Solar Challenge. Our hosts are Kathy and her husband, Hai-Yue Han. We are almost to their house at about 1230 hours when Marcelo is pulled over by the local police, new record! 10th time stopped by police!

Marcelo shows him all the documents and we were allowed to proceed and even took some photos of the policeman, of course! The solar car has gathered a small crowd of sympathetic observers through the brief inspection.

We arrive a little late at Kathy’s house and find a big, excited group gathered in her driveway and they wave Marcelo in with big grins! They are excited and thrilled to have him visit, he feels right at home with solar car enthusiasts who understand so much about his car already that he doesn’t have to explain hardly anything. They have made us brunch, too!

We find them to be a wonderful, helpful and friendly bunch and quickly we set up the solar array to charge at a nearby school while we become acquainted with them. I had driven the trailer by Marcelo earlier today and he had heard some sounds that he didn’t like. We check out the trailer and find that one of the wheels has 3 lug nuts that are completely sheared off; the wheel is so loose that it is close to falling off! Oh no! We have to fix it immediately before we can proceed any further.

The industrious and helpful Hai-Yue and Craig get very busy in trying to fix the wheel. They quickly inform me that we need a new wheel and that we will probably have to wait until tomorrow to get it purchased. I am disappointed until Marcelo comes outside and promptly produces a brand new wheel from the back of the trailer! Yay! The students immediately start changing the wheel and Kathy and I go to an auto parts store to purchase new lug nuts and bolts. While the wheel is being fixed, the solar car’s batteries become fully charged again!

We finally hit the road for Eugene at 1530 hours (3:30 P.M.) Marcelo produces a flashing light for John’s vehicle, and he goes behind the solar car this time while Bill and I go ahead in the van and try to stop for some photo opportunities with the video camera.

John has found all 4 of us a place to stay in Eugene, with his parents, Doug and Dorothy Peton. They live on a farm near Veneta and have sheep, horses and border collies. Marcelo is excited to see the reaction of these new animals to his solar car. He has some great pictures of many animals that have really been very interested in the car.

We have only one terrifying incident where we get on a very busy freeway and my cell phone dies at the same time due to excessive use and I cannot communicate with John anymore. I quickly realize that I can plug it into the inverter and Bill does that for me, Marcelo has the support van complete with modern conveniences, very nice! We arrive safely at John’s parent’s home at about 1700 hours (5 P.M.) We have gone a total of 85.5 miles today and still have a lot of charge left in the batteries.

John’s parents take us out for Mexican food, yum! After dinner, Marcelo sets up his computer to show the Peton’s his photos. He asks me for help in showing them and I am happy to oblige him. I love seeing all those wonderful shots. It has been a near perfect day!

x-x-x

By Bill Bishoprick,
A few observations of our sojourn from Salem to Florence:
Inky blackness and fog penetrated by two tiny but bright lights, a saucer shape emerges silently from the mist.
This was my introduction to Power of One. Fortunately, I knew he was coming or I might have called 911.
Laurie, John, Marcelo, solar car and two chase vehicles were stopping in Salem, hoping the fog would give way to the sun.
This actually happened and a full charge the next day made Marcelo anxious to hit the road the following morning.Because of the weekend and holiday we couldn't connect with the Governor or Legislators.
My arm was twisted to join the group and we started off to Corvallis. Suddenly, I was multi-tasking; GPS,cell phone and video camera.We had a beautiful ride along the Willamette River, through Independence on a cloudless day. People along the route went from bulging eyes to grins; a pair of skateboarders did a doubletake.
In Corvallis a wrong turn turned into a stop by the local constabulary looking for a legal licence plate.Stern faced and unyielding at the start became grins after twenty minutes and we proceeded to the local EV group for discussion and lunch.
Repair of a broken wheel on the trailer caused a delay, but we got a good charge and set off for Eugene. John saved us from camping out; his parents put us up at their farm outside of Veneta. They were a delight and showed us their Border Collies, sheep and horses.



By Allen Brown,
At 10AM I checked my email to see an announcement to the Corvallis Electric Vehicle mailing list. A solar powered car was coming to town and would be at a friend's house in one hour. Fortunately I didn't have a conflict for that time. I forwarded the message to a couple of other local mailing lists I know of and headed over to Kathy's house.

Let me tell you about Kathy and Hai. They met as students on the Oregon State University Solar Car Racing Team. Of course their team built their own car. They had recently moved into their current home. The highlight of their shop was a newly arrived NC Milling machine.

They have raced their car in the North American race from Texas north into Canada. Unfortunately for me their race is in July, the peak Kinetic
Sculpture time. So I am in my own races and can't join them.

As for my own EV interests, I own a hybrid car. But more importantly I am making a solar powered amphibious car,
http://brown.armoredpenguin.com/~abrown/Sojourner/

What I am saying is that this fellow Marcelo was driving his solar car into a hotbed of solar car enthusiasts and builders.

At this point Marcelo's solar car http://www.xof1.com/ was two hours late. Alan Batie (who owns an electric car of his own) and I tried to backtrack
the xof1 trail to find them and see what had happened. We didn't see them. But our driving off was the trigger the universe needed to make them arrive. We got a call, turned back and arrived after he did. It seems he had been stopped by the local police.

Marcelo was preoccupied and I didn't get to talk with him. But his trailer had a problem. Three of the lug studs on one of his wheels had broken.
Several of the Corvallis folks sprang into action pulling the wheel and getting new lug studs. They determined that the holes in the rim were
oversized and likely were damaging the studs. The rim would have to be replaced. Fortunately the spare was in good condition. The damaged rim
would be adequate for a spare. You just wouldn't want to drive lots of miles on it.

Dave, a friend of mine who got the word from my mailings told me Marcelo was looking for a crew. Lauri, who was driving the chase vehicle needed to head back to her home in Wenatchee, Washington. As Dave pointed out, since I am retired I am not tied down by a job. So I can go off on jaunts like this.

It was a tough decision. I had just gotten back from Australia on December 1 and had depleted my cash. For that trip I had made some arrangements to have my bills paid, but those arrangements wouldn't help me now. And I was slowly transitioning my billing to be automatic so that such arrangements would become irrelevant, but I was far from ready with that.

On the plus side, opportunities like this are rare. It would be a shame to miss it. I finally decided to take a chance on the financials and jump on
it.


Laurie has found her favorite spot in Bill’s self-designed and self-built passive solar house. It has terrific views from all 5 levels
Bill with the xof1 parked in his driveway. It looks good there, Bill.
Laurie is taking pictures of Bill while Marcelo takes sneaky pictures of her! :)
The solar car heads up Bill’s street to be charged in the park for the morning.
Bill already got a model to pose next to his EV.

Bill’s second electric vehicle is progressing very nicely!

The solar car driving up Bill’s street. Sweet!
On the road again! Between Salem and Corvallis

New Record! Marcelo is stopped by the police for the 10th time in Corvallis, Oregon!

We arrive at Kathy’s house and meet a terrific group of OSU solar car students and all of their supporters.
The trailer wheel is about to fall off! Oops! It appears that 3 out of 8 lug nuts have sheared off and must be fixed ASAP!
Hai-Yue quickly gets to work on fixing the wheel.

Marcelo and Hai-Yue consult with all the experts on how to fix the wheel. How many solar car enthusiasts does it take to change a wheel?
Marcelo talks with Kathy, Craig and another OSU team member.
EV enthusiasts, Alam (left) future XOF1 volunteer support driver.
Charging the solar car batteries at a school near Kathy and Hai-Yue’s house.
It is another beautiful day in Oregon, great for charging the car’s batteries!

The OSU American Solar Challenge group members pose with the xof1.
Marcelo prepares to leave Corvallis with Hai-Yue watching.
We take off again. Eugene, here we come!
It is such a gorgeous, sunny day!
The xof1 is a beautiful car on a wonderful day
John takes a great picture of the solar car with the van following behind.
Laurie gets a picture of the solar car with John traveling behind.
II
III
It does look like a UFO
It landed
Take me to your leader!
Arring at the ranch
Doug and Dorothy Peton welcome the team
Bill, Laurie Dorothy, Doug and John looking at photos of the tour and watching some videos