On a gloomy Wednesday morning two days before our first visit, I packed my trunk and cleaned the scraps of past adventures from my room—train ticket stubs, water purification tablets, city maps, translation cheat sheets, Vietnamese newspapers….

Through the evening I wrestled with my brother Will, gave my Mom a computer lesson, and carried in wood for the fire. Ethan arrived around 11PM.

It was 40 degrees and drizzling when we reached the bus in E’s driveway. I loaded my trunk, skateboard, canned goods, books and tent, then laid my sleeping bag down inside the metal hull of my new home.

We spent the following day crossing off tasks—online banking, fastening bookshelves to the walls, answering emails, filling up on grease, and packing the bus with essentials—food, water, duct tape, filters, drums, sleeping bags, two 5 gallon buckets of Biodiesel, hoses, tools, hand cleaner, laptops, way too many books and multitude of other things we might need while living on and maintaining a vegetable oil powered school bus.

By midnight Burkie and Cat arrived and we set a course for the UMass. We followed the Mass Pike from the east coast to the middle of the state, reaching Amherst several hours before dawn.

I peered out of my sleeping bag in the morning to see UMass students file in and out of the high rise dorms wearing Red Sox baseball hats and hooded Patriots sweatshirts.

Daniela, a graduate student from Germany and MassPIRG representative, greeted us as we stretched outside the bus. She led us into her dorm where we showered, cooked breakfast and got to know our quiet and intense host.

Daniela told us about her studies in mammalian biology at UMass and expressed her frustration at the amount of waste produced in American society. She was baffled by the disposable plastic shopping bags at the organic grocer, styrofoam cups at the environmental club meeting and the precious little attention paid to the coal fired power plant in the middle of UMass campus.

“We cannot turn down the heat in our dorm rooms in the winter. Instead, we just open the window,” Dani said shaking her head.

After a BioTour breakfast special—eggs, rice, and beans, Daniela directed us to the middle of campus. We steered our bright blue bus into the scene of concrete landscapes and matching grey sky.

Ethan and Burkie armed themselves with flyers and hunted down pedestrians. Cat rendered a big colorful “Step It Up 07” in sidewalk chalk, while I fielded questions at the bus:

“Does that thing really run on vegetable oil?”.

“Yeah it does. Actually the diesel engine was originally designed to run on a variety of fuels. The inventor, Rudolf Diesel, saw it as a way to stimulate local agricultural economies, etc, etc, etc…” I rattled off the well practiced answers.

We toured the campus that day and met a full spectrum of responses. Some people didn’t look up from their cell phones or Ipods, while others were ready to jump on board and join the crew. Still more would stop, accept a flyer, maybe think about it for a moment, and then continue on their way.

By late afternoon we were all drained from engaging people for hours on end. We parked the bus next to Ethan’s old apartment and made dinner and relaxed with Ethan’s friend Brandon.

After dinner, Ethan’s old roommates joined us inside the bus for a meta-physical exploration. After too much talking, Ethan and I, felt that all the words weren’t getting us anywhere and decided to use our feet. We burst out of the door, flying away up a hill, across a baseball field, and over a wooden bridge into the woods. As we ran upstream along the moonlit river, the hush of the distant waterfall grew to a roar. We climbed up to the rocky cliff side and sat quietly by the precipice for a spell. Once our thoughts were sufficiently muffled by the falling water, we ran off again to investigate an ancient tree; its huge branches growing steadily out over centuries. We galloped onward down the road to a co-housing community, and admired the simple, and sadly uncommon, way that people could live and work together, sharing their space some of their resources. We then skipped onto a private golf course, climbed in and out of a wide pine tree, then lay down on the manicured fairway and watched a couple of shooting stars criss-cross the sky. We returned to the apartment philosophically satisfied.

The next day was Step it Up Day. Daniela had prepared a tight schedule to make efficient use of us and the bus. E steered the bus up a steep road carved between grey oaks and granite boulders to upper campus. We jumped off armed with flyers.

Inside the dining hall we informed a few groggy students in pajama pants about the impending climate and fuel crises. Then opted for a new strategy and positioned the bus between another set of dorms and the dining hall, coming between hung over students and their food and making them come to us. We broke out the drums, sending djembe rhythms echoing between the dorms. Eventually the students began to stir and investigate the big blue commotion in front of their dorm.

Daniela informed us that it was time for our next stop, minutes later, Ethan and Burkie were on the roof banging drums between the shops and restaurants of the Amherst common. We then headed to the Hitchcock Center for the Environment the beginning of the Step-It-Up Day events. We rolled into the small dirt parking lot stopping between an old VW bus converted for SVO, and brand new Volswagen golf converted to run on veg by the women at Seven Sisters Auto. Ethan and I gave a presentation then joined the parade of activists marching from the nature center two miles down the road to Hampshire College, carrying home made signs and pushing bike strollers.

Pleased looking folks milled about between a horseshoe of tables and the stage. They chatted with organizers and perused the pamphlets on the tables while enjoying free lentil soup.

Cat and Burkie rounded up the lead organizers for an interview inside the bus. There was Ted, the resident naturist who noticed that a species of tit-mouse migrated further North of its normal territory because of rising temperatures and was struck by the reality of global warming. Ted challenged several families to measure and reduce their consumption, and met more people who shared his concerns. He then and got involved with Step-It-Up.

Lani, a Junior Sustainability Studies major, was the lead organizer for Hampshire College. Although Hampshire College supports sustainable projects and there are flocks of sheep grazing on campus pastures, Lani and her organization New Leaf pressure the administration to make the campus a model of efficient design and sustainable practices.

And Debbie, avid quilter and loving mother to children from Kenya and Jamaica. The idea for the event was born of conversations around her kitchen table. She had never before organized an event.

Debbie invited the BioTour crew over for brunch next morning. (After a serendipitous night at the local Irish Pub, the Harp) We were all quite happy to be out of the cold bus for a while and eat with Debbie and her family before making our way back East.

Little kids ran through the kitchen and friends and neighbors walked through the open front door. Debbie’s family and their neighbors share a garden in the culdesac between their homes. Now instead of suburban isolation, there is a little slice of the Shire.

Maisha, Debbie’s twelve year old daughter from Kenya, and I jumped on the trampoline in the rain.

“Why do you run your bus on grease?” she asked me after I explained how our bus works.

“Well, it’s free, it’s fun, its better for the climate, and we don’t have to waste as much petroluem.”

“Is that like gas? Are we going to run out or something?”

“Yeah, but not for a while, but pretty soon there’s just not going to be enough for everyone to keep living the way people live now.” I said.

“Oh,” Maisha said, “Then they’ll probably be wars and fighting for it, huh?”

“Well, yes.” I said.

Maisha thought about this for a moment, “Or…if someone didn’t have enough fuel or whatever someone else, like up the street could just share with them. And everyone would just help each other so they could have enough like in a family. Every street could be just like a family.”

“You’re right Maisha,” I said, “we could.”

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