Middle Tennessee State University alternative fuels researcher Cliff Ricketts realizes things never come easy.
Before leaving Key West, Florida, Saturday (Nov. 8) to begin a 3,550-mile jaunt across the country on pure biodiesel that essentially is waste animal fat (chickens), he and his crew were continuing to be frustrated by a lingering overheating issue with the 34-year-old truck he is driving on the expedition.
And even before that, being well aware some of the 13 states he will be driving through are northern and in the Pacific Northwest, he heard about a potential weather situation totally opposite of the 82-degree mostly sunny weather he was enjoying in South Florida.
“This is going to be an adventure,” said Ricketts, 66, a 38-year veteran MTSU professor, just before departing from Key West to head toward Miami, Fort Lauderdale and an eventual overnight stay in Bradenton.
“It’s 72 degrees this morning in Key West,” he added. “We’ll hit 30-degree temperatures when we reach Tennessee (Sunday night) and hit 20 degrees in Kansas City (Monday). In Montana, and we’ll go through Billings, we could hit 12-degree temperatures” after an arctic vortex blew through the region.
The researcher, who grew up on a farm and still lives on the family farm outside of Mt. Juliet, Tennessee, said the team “will go as far as we can with the research, experiencing as much as we can, but we will use wisdom if we have to call off or change a route later on.”
MTSU junior Abby Barlow of McMinnville, Tennessee, suggested they pop the hood latch, allowing more air to reach the engine.
By the time Ricketts reached Dania Beach for a media interview request, he said the 1981 Volkswagen Rabbit pickup truck would need a new thermostat. Mechanical engineer and volunteer Mike Sims of Jackson, Michigan, discovered an additional issue they were trying to fix as daylight faded to dark.
Any who sees the truck coming also has heard it in their midst. It is noisy. Someone suggested a quieter alternative.
The truck features an exhaust stack system, vertically protruding from the truck bed.
“It’s loud, and when you demonstrate it to kids, they like that,” Ricketts said. They also find the aroma — the smell of French fries — amusing and entertaining.
In Key West, Ricketts drove past and tried to photograph the Ernest Hemingway Home and the home where President Harry Truman stayed.
He and the group quickly sampled the rich history and cuisine of the city, where you can find chickens on downtown streets, where you can people watch and see any and everything in the way of the unusual.
The truck features an exhaust stack system, vertically protruding from the truck bed.
“It’s loud, and when you demonstrate it to kids, they like that,” Ricketts said. They also find the aroma — the smell of French fries — amusing and entertaining.
