A Bit More on Day Two

Well, Anton already told you most of it. The morning was a panic (as described) followed by despair. Anton tried to get me to buck up and not worry about the damned car, and how much we might end up paying for the gashes we put in it. We had to clean it ourselves--it was early enough that other car washes weren't yet open.




Then, we tried and failed to think about fixing it all, and decided to take off. Luckily, getting to Solar Two (while difficult), brightened our spirits.

Driving in.

SEGS I & II, the parabolic dishes next door.

Heating Facility.

Storage Facility.

It was half Disneyland, half graveyard. The tower was a bit awe-inspiring, but it was surrounded by great fields of 18-foot-high mirrors that stood, flat, like gravestones. At least one tower had actually collapsed and crashed to the ground.

The Graveyard of Heliostats

A Fallen Mirror.

Anton Inspects the Mirror

At some point, we saw some figures in the distance, who turned out to be quite friendly and helpful. We learned the importance of dressing for the occasion--our hardhats, glasses, and "engineer" dress (t-shirts and jeans) made us look the part, and our obsessive picture-taking and exploring made us look intense rather than touristy. When we approached, we said hi, and told them we were from MIT, which didn't surprise them. We thought it was because they had been warned we were coming to check it out. But apparently MIT is involved in the decommissioning, so they thought we were contractors, which was awesome. But they let us wander around, as long as we promised that they could pretend they never saw us.

A view from the tower.

More Inspecting.

Ancient Electrical Monitors.

Insane heating pipes. How could you possibly need so many?

Even More Thermal Stuff.

Anton Charms Our Hosts.

A View of the Graveyard from the Tower.

And some obligatory pictures of us on location:










And so, we left. Before we went, we were told that the great tower will be detonated in a week; we realized, as we left, that we'll be some of the last engineers to ever witness the tower in person, to stand on it. Weird.

So then we left. We drove out, booking it to LAX, worried we'd be late. It was stressful; we were fast, everyone else around us was completely insane. But as we went, we got to enjoy the landscape turning from desert to palm.







We then arrived at LAX and caught the biggest break we've caught in a long time--turned out, I'd bought insurance, and so the stress of the damage to the car was suddenly and serendipitously relieved. We then moved on through Long Beach's nearly nonexistent mass transit system to the Long Beach Airport (which was basically 3rd-world level), and took off to SF. We're now here for a solar conference which starts tomorrow (today we rested). We'll update you guys on that, too, when it comes.

Day 2

I've had some requests to fill you in one what happened next in our saga. I'll keep it short, especially since I don't have the pictures with me (it's on Erik's camera and he's not around right now).

We got up fairly early, around 7am, and proceeded to the car wash. The car was Dirty. I'd go as far as saying it was filthy. Outside the car was just generally covered in dirt. The inside, however, was a different story. There was sand in pretty much every nook and cranny. We tried our best to vacuum up as much as we could but I think the rental company is going to have quite a time bringing it back to that 'new car' look and feel (and smell) that you get from rentals.
I forgot to check the car for any damage the night before and it's just as well - I would have slept far worse than I did if I had.

We found two major scratches on the fore and aft bumpers. The scratch on the back of the car was far worse than the front. Somehow, while digging the car out the night before and messing around with wooden planks, we'd managed to take a fairly deep gouge out of the bodywork. Normally this wouldn't be a major cause for concern (since rental insurance usually covers that kind of thing) but unfortunately Erik thought that he hadn't bought insurance for the rental. Panic ensues.
At this point we're quite pressed for time, since we'd like to actually make a stop at the Solar Two facility (the whole point of this journey) before we have to shoot through to LA. I suggested that we go to a car repair place to see if we can pick up one of those repair kits they always advertise on TV.
Not surprisingly the repair kit idea was a dud. Finding the right paint color/shade turned out to be next to impossible. Plus, it probably would have taken us a couple of hours to fix things up.

It was unavoidable. We had to just suck it up and drop the car off when the time came. If they decided to charge us $$$ for repairs... well we'd just have to pay.

We managed to get to Solar Two in one piece this time. Seeing the facility up close actually lifted our spirits a bit. It felt like we'd at last accomplished something. We also met some facilities guys and inspectors from the EPA on site. Initially, they thought that we were the tear down crew who would be in charge of demolitions and clean up (yes, they're going to blow up the central tower and surrounding buildings next week). We explained that we were in fact just students from MIT involved in an energy project. They looked dubious until we dropped the name of their boss (he'd given us the go ahead about a week ago). Everyone was friendly, we shared a laugh, they turned a blind eye and we got to look around.

We hit the road again, this time heading for LAX. As an aside: LA has drivers from hell when it comes to the highways. They are speed demons. It was great. Probably the most fun I've had while driving in a very long time.

Good news: Erik did buy insurance. We took the car in for drop off. The guy had us fill in a short form, took the keys, and that was that. No extra charges and no hassles. Major relief.

Had to take public transport/foot power to get to long beach. Had a good (but pricey) meal at Long Beach Airport once we got there, snoozed for 15 minutes on the plane, and got picked up by an angel (a friend of Erik's) at the airport in SF.

Needless to say, I slept well that night.

That's it! Okay, it wasn't a very short post but it does capture most of the interesting events of the day.

-Anton

Solar Adventure: Day 1 Recap

Today was the first and very long day of a five day solar/road trip for myself and Anton. We have made it to our motel in Barstow, CA, by what must have been an act of God. The day was full of unexpected twists and turns. It is a tale that must be told in full, so I shall start from the beginning.

Our day began at 9:38PM, EDT in Colmar, PA. We took the train down to Philadelphia (transferring to the last train to the airport, getting there at just before midnight) for a 5:25AM flight, finding ourselves hard-pressed to find an hour of napping in the meantime. We boarded the flight without issue, and transferred in Charlotte, NC, stuck to one of the more cancerous and degenerate men we've ever met. That was not so bad. We believed our lack of sleep would be the greatest peril we faced this trip.

But then, we landed in Vegas. Ready with an already-reserved car, we went to Budget to get the keys. While punching in the numbers, the clerk stopped, horrified. "...you're 22?" She asked. Yes. Well, apparently that's not fucking good enough for Budget. We took 90 minutes, running around to every damned car rental company in the area, to find someone who was willing to find a loophole to not only let me rent, but let me (dare I say it) drop off the car in Los Angeles. It happened to be Dollar, for what it's worth, but we still paid through the nose, and we still have to drop off at LAX and then use mass transit to make our way to LGB to fly to San Francisco. We did, though, have the pleasure of renting a Dodge Charger for the road trip portion of the adventure, although the accelerator response is a little weak. We also have the car for a bit less time than we had originally planned with budget, so our time is a bit crunched. But we left with the belief that we had overcome the greatest challenge of the trip.

Anton's Happy

But it drove fine. We went to the Hoover Dam!







And from there, we went to Nevada Solar One. Apparently they don't like visitors, so we ended up taking off pretty early, but we got an idea of the size of the project and the kinds of facilities a normal plant has. We ended this mumbo-jumbo around 2:30PM, PDT.





We then took off for Barstow, CA; 168 miles from Vegas. The trip was awesome. The desert was amazing, we both got to push the Charger to over 100 mph, and we saw great rock formations.







Additionally, we pulled into a general store run by a hardcore libertarian Ron Paulite, who had billboards and everything (though for a Paulite he was extremely laid back). Along with the radio programs, we realized that the Mojave area was full of "leave me alone, I'll leave you alone" sorts of folks, who Anton and I decided we quite appreciate.







We finally made it to Yermo (after me dozing off for half an hour, finally), and found it to be a creepy ghost town. Though The Solar Project (which we are actually invited to visit during its decommission) was visible, and we grew excited.






But. A moving train blocked our most obvious paved road, so we took a dirt road around. And, in a bout of incredible foolishness, I managed to navigate us right into a giant pile of sand, which happened to be a few miles away from any known locations with humans. And, of course, we were stuck, 150 feet into the soft stuff. After brief optimism, followed by brief panic, we got to work on un-stucking ourselves, including trying to use the mats for traction. The time was 6PM, PDT.






We found after a long while that the mats were not working, and we were just digging ourselves deeper. In fact, we realized that the chassis was sitting on the sand, and we were really in trouble. Though many would have called for help, we were paranoid of incredible costs, as well as on-the-record problems with rental companies. Plus, who could we call besides the police? We insisted on continuing to work on fixing it ourselves.

But the sun began to set. Our eyes filled with sand, as well as everything else we knew, including phones, wallets, clothes; everything outside. We dug by hand, by stick. We scouted for wooden planks (luckily, we were next to a train track) and started using those to try and give the damned car traction.







We kept a good, if panicked, attitude towards trying to get ourselves out. But the splinters and blisters started to add up, and we were making precious few inches if movement with every use of digging and planking. But our methods improved as the hours dragged on--even if our moods plummeted to desperation and terror. The sun finally set on us and Solar Two, so close nearby, as we continued to fight desperately with nature to try and free ourselves.





During this time, the sun set on Solar Two, and we resigned to visiting quickly during the morning. Our morale was also crushed by time, frustration, hard work, and a great deal of pain: we almost considered making a call out to get help. But we stuck with it, and finally, as we perfected our escape system, we emerged from the muck at 9:45, PDT--3 hours and 45 minutes of non-stop agony after we had gotten ourselves into it. Needless to say, we are tired, miserable, and behind-schedule. But, we emerged victorious--our resiliency, stubbornness, and ingenuity were able to defeat the seemingly insurmountable forces brought to bear by our own stupidity.

And now, we are in Barstow. Our eyes and fingers hurt a great deal; we are massively sleep-depped, and we have to wash the heck out of this car tomorrow morning lest our rentors start to catch on what the car's been through. But, luckily for us, things are just beginning. Tonight we will be short on sleep to make up for our previous errors; hopefully, we will be tired enough to catch up on shut-eye at the airport/airplane.

More to come later.