American Festivals Project

What we try to do on this blog is show you all the great aspects of American festivals and events, highlight some of the interesting people we meet, and share the light-hearted stories along the way. But perhaps what we don’t do enough of, is share the day to day events and challenges that make up the majority of the project. A lot of our friends comment on our project through the blog or over the phone. The common perception that most have is, ‘That looks like so much fun”, or “It’s like you’re on vacation”, or “I wish I could just drive around and look at cool stuff.” These are all comments that we expect, because given the general nature of the project, this is a trip of a lifetime, and it is lots of fun.

One of the reasons for not posting on a daily basis and providing more day-to-day updates, is that we are limited to wireless connection and we are almost constantly busy with driving, researching new places to go, editing images and video, and creating the ‘long’ blog posts that you typically see. It feels like any time we have away from driving is spent on the computer–and even then, the person not driving is usually on a laptop! I’ve wondered what it would be like to just drive across America for the sole purpose of ‘the experience’. No plans, no set destinations, no cameras (well, maybe one camera), and certainly no vegetable oil. But by imagining that care-free style of travel, I suppose I am forgetting about inevitable problems that always occur on a road trip.

This project has for the most part been free of major problems. However, there are those moments when the world seems to be against us. This week in particular has been plagued with automobile problems, although mostly related to running veggie oil. Since last Wednesday in Sweetwater, Texas, we’ve driven close to 2,500 miles on the ol’ dodge lodge, dished out $1,200 of our hard-earned cash on repairs, and spent countless hours tweaking the vegetable oil system for it to function properly. Besides the two wonderful events we photographed (the mardi gras Indians and cheerleaders), the week has been an exhausting kick to the stomach. There are those moments, when you’re going on three hours of sleep and pumping veggie oil at 3am from a nasty garbage area in a dark alleyway, that you wonder just how important this project is to you.

We had a funny experience last week when gathering some veggie oil in Texas. Now, I must preface this story by saying that we almost always ask permission for veggie oil before we pump it. But on this certain occasion, we were in a rush to get to a dinner appointment, and we thought this Asian restaurant was a chain, which meant the employees would probably know nothing about their waste oil, nor care if we took some. So we pulled the big dodge lodge up to the barrels of veggie, hooked up our pump, and helped ourselves. We were quietly going about our business when from out of nowhere a small Vietnamese man came storming out the back door of the restaurant screaming in pigeon english, “Give me ten dollars, give me ten dollars! I call the 911!” Due to the volume of his voice and wildly gesturing arms, we knew this guy meant business. Andrew and I tried to explain what we were doing, and that really, we were doing him a favor by taking away his oil. But the angry man did not want to have a conversation, and we guessed that he owned this restaurant and was already getting paid for his waste oil. Unfortunately, neither of us had any cash so Andrew explained that he was going to walk over to Walmart and withdraw cash. While Andrew was gone, I felt like the ransomed child, guarded by a raging Vietnamese who continued to stand guard while muttering English (and Vietnamese) swear words under his breath. After a few minutes though, I figured that since we had to pay the $10, we might as well get our money worth and pump the rest of the oil. The man complied. I smiled and asked him if China Express was his restaurant. He didn’t smile. Needless to say, we made it out of there alive, and even made our dinner appointment.

There are countless stories like this from the road, but sadly we run out of time to properly share them. As we embrace the problems along the way, we always remind ourselves that we are seeing the unique life of America, and it truly is an honor. We’ll do our best to write more from the road and hopefully you can respond with your comments. Farther up and further in!