The Veggie Voyagers: An Eco-Friendly, Low Budget Loop of North America's Wild Places Powered by Used Cooking Oil

By Chris Nelson with Michael Pike

At the age of 60 BEC member Chris Nelson retired and with her very capable husband went on the road in a 1987 truck with a cab over camper that had been converted to run on waste cooking oil.

The account of this journey, The Veggie Voyagers is an understated account of a Great North American Adventure without the underpinnings of security or convenience. It’s about a devotion to staying off fossil fuels through a quest for open space, freedom and natural beauty.

Along a loosely determined loop through 20 states in continental America and two separate spikes up into three Canadian provinces the authors experienced constant challenges and adventures of mobile homelessness.

This book is about the adaptations in attitude and role necessary to pursue low budget fossil fuel free domestic travel. It’s the story of a quest and pilgrimage of reverence in finding and appreciating the natural jewels of the continent. It was also a weathered glimpse into what endangered but sacred spaces remain on a thin, wavering line of experience as well as a clear observance of environmental problems that must be acknowledged and addressed.

Available now at Lyon Books and CSU, Chico Bookstore on recycled paper with vegetable dyed color photos throughout. Printed in the U.S.A. For detailed blog entries with great nature photos check out July, 2007 through May, 2008 on www.veggievoyagers.blogspot.com.

From the Fall/Winter 2010 issue of the Environmental News.