The journey continues for the Iowa Central Aggies E85 cross country road trip. Here is the latest post from designated blogger Bradley Westrum.
March 9-06
The road was still closed when we woke up this morning around 5:15, so we took our sweet time getting ready. Leaving the hotel in Cheyenne, Wyoming around 7:00 A.M. still knowing that Interstate 80 was closed west of Laramie, Wyoming, which is 5 miles west of Cheyenne. When we pulled into Laramie, we saw a pile up of semis that reached back about 10 miles, filling both sides of the road, the entrance and exit ramps, and all the gas and truck stops in the city. We sat and waited for about an hour for the road to open, but seeing that it wasn’t going to happen anytime soon, we decided to take a minor detour. After taking the detour that forced us out of our way about 30 miles, we got back onto our scheduled path. The roads were questionable for the most of the day, but the weather could not decide what it wanted to do. It snowed, rained, the wind blew in some parts, but in others the temp sky rocketed, and the sun was out. We filled up in Draper, Utah and Provo, Utah. Provo is where we were planning on staying the night tonight, but when the weather report came in, it sounded as if there was another storm on its way toward us. So we decided to get as far as we could tonight before it started to storm. We got as far as Cedar City, Utah which is just off Interstate 15 and got a hotel room for the night.
Tomorrow we plan to drive to Las Vegas, and spend some time seeing the sights around the area and then head to Los Angeles where we will spend the remainder of our trip until the flight out of LAX Saturday afternoon.
We found that most of the Ethanol Stations that offer E-85 are in towns that have a Military Base. This is because the stations then can almost put any price up, and the Military Base will be nearly forced to pay the price.
The Students that went on the first part of the trip are, Alex Lundgren, Ashley Heflin, Tami Davis, and Bradley Westrum, as well as the Ag Coordinator Jim Richardson. The students that are currently on the second leg of the trip are Pat Lennon and Nate Marean. Bradley and Jim have been on the whole trip.
Stay tuned for further updates as the Iowa Central Aggies for Renewable Resources travel across the country, supporting 85% Ethanol. You can expect another update tomorrow night.
See the U.S.A in your Flex Fuel Chevrolet!!!
Two of the team’s sponsors are the National Ethanol Vehicle Coalition and the American Lung Association of Iowa.