Yup, this is the name of the Subway sandwich our vegetarian daughter favours…but it seemed appropriate to how we are all feeling today.  We are so pleased to have finally made the leap into our waste veggie oil vehicle, a 1994 Mitsubishi Delica 4WD Van.

The kids have been pestering Chris about our once every three years trip to Ontario to see his family and this was slated to be the year for the winter adventure (and it is an adventure driving across part of Canada with three kids in the winter!)  Chris has been less than thrilled with pouring fuel into our CRV to make this trip. (Forget airplane travel; if it’s on this continent than that is out of the question because of the carbon footprint!). 

Chris REALLY wanted a diesel vehicle last spring to convert.  Simply for the pleasure of doing it, and saving money, and bypassing the use of fossil fuels.  Last spring we took a stab at it, but buying the vehicle was dependant on selling the CRV and we didn’t have much luck with that. 

Chris’ consulting work has allowed us to buy the veggie mobile outright and to take a bit of time to sell the CRV.  He and I put our parental heads together and agreed that we would make the trip if we could find and buy a diesel vehicle, convert it and run it as far as we can on WVO (waste vegetable oil).  We kept it to ourselves for a few days, but last Wednesday when Stephen said (whined), “I really wanna buy a van and go to Ontario”, Chris picked up the phone, got Barry, from Mustang Connections in Armstrong, and said, “We’d like to come down to buy a van.” 

Stephen Power!

The last few weeks have  proven Helen to be our salesperson (she managed to find buyers for three of our ewes) so she and I are fixing up the Honda and aggressively selling it to offset the cost of the Delica van. 

Our plan is to make this a family project.  Because the van is an older Japanese import-Canada does not allow vehicles from Japan that are newer than 15 years old–there are some things we need to do to customize it.  The first is to convert it to run on WVO.  The Japanese don’t appear to use their vehicles altogether much. Ours has only 64,000 km on it!  Chris has been exchanging emails with Ed Beggs of Plantdrive.ca, the fellow we rode to Kimberley with last winter in his WVO Jetta.  Chris plans to document the conversion on this blog.  I’ll let him deal with the technical aspects of this project.

The second is to upgrade the stereo system.  In 1994 stereos were still made to accept cassette tapes!  On our long trips, we are very big on audio books and music from our ipods.

We also need to find a roof rack.  The Delica seats 7, but then has very little cargo area.  Thankfully all five back seats fold up and away in some form or another, so when we just have the three kids, we can create a little cargo area. 

The two back seats have some ripped upholstery that we need to fix–but otherwise the interior and exterior is in pretty fine shape.

At the same time we have some cool plans for documenting the process.  Helen and I are going to keep track of how much the whole project costs, right from the orginal purchase price ($11,500).  We will be keeping track of our trip costs, too.  We’ll be comparing (over time) how much the Delica costs to run vs. the Honda and we will do a comparison for this trip on its own, to see what the difference in cost (and footprint) is. 

We’re also going to try to find suppliers of WVO along the way.  We can’t possibly carry enough to take us all the way across to Ontario, but with some planning, we may be able to find like-minded folks who are already filtering their own oil, who might sell some to us to keep us going.  We know somebody locally who sells his for $0.15 per litre, just to recover the costs of collecting and filtering.   We’re also going to prevail upon friends, family and, yes, strangers, who are game to gather some used oil and let it settle for about three weeks before we plan to swing by their stretch of the Trans Canada Highway!  There are all sorts of issues with this…but we are going to try to see if we can’t involve others in our transportation venture.  If you are interested, please let us know so that we can meet you and talk about how to proceed.

The kids and I are also going to try to find a sponsor.  Hey, why not?  If you know of, or own, a company involved in alternative fuels or green technology in general (or even green products), let’s talk. We’d love to put your logo on the Veggie Mobile, the blog, and talk about your generous donation of $$ or materials while we talk about your product.

We’ve all committed to contributing to blog posts to keep our interested readers up to speed on how things progress, and our very unique perspectives on Project Delica.

We are all pretty excited, for very different reasons.  Stephen is most excited about having space to spread out in for this trip.  It will be our third cross-Canada trip; the first was in 2003 and took us to Ontario, Vermont and New Brunswick. In 2008 we went to Ontario and back.  Each of them had us packed like sardines, loaded with movies, music, books, puzzles and one-way good cheer.

The girls are excited to see their cousins, but especially their Aunt Nancy, who makes them laugh and buys them things that I wouldn’t.  Chris is really keen on the technical aspects of the conversion and is looking forward to seeing his family for the first time in three years.  I’m excited because I always love to prove that we can do something with some effort. I suspect this trip will take some effort! 

Probably the biggest adjustment and effort we will have to make is getting used to the right hand drive. It is quite amusing that whenever Chris turns on the signal, he sets the windshield wipers on high speed!  We have to learn to drive next to the white line, and to check our left hand mirror on the passenger’s side before we pass.  The best advice I ever received about a right hand drive?  If you’re going through the drive-thru, take a buddy!!!

More to come.