Hi y'all,

I have had an exciting week!  Here are some news reports from the last
week of my life.  I volunteered to drive Marcelo's support van behind
him as he drove his solar car across Washington and Oregon.  I really
enjoyed stepping out of my ordinary role as a mom and even learned how
to drive a van pulling a trailer again. (I kept looking behind me
today for the trailer, too!)   I had lots of fun talking to reporters
and newspapers.  Here are some news reports to check out, if you are
interested!

This article was printed the day I came to Olympia to join Marcelo.
He stayed with the mayor of Lacey (a town near Olympia) while he was
there in the area, which turned out to be nearly 2 1/2 weeks because
of the awful weather!
http://www.theolympian.com/living/story/724840.html

This is from the Longview, WA paper I did this whole interview myself
(there are some mistakes, so don't quote the facts and figures in it),
Marcelo was too busy with other people while we were at Solar World in
Hillsboro, trying to get some money from them!  It didn't work,
though :(
http://www.tdn.com/articles/2009/01/16/top_story/doc496ff00a285f8561618499.txt

This photo is from downtown Centralia as we passed through, if you
look in the passenger seat of the van, you will see me!  We stopped at
a shopping mall a little later to charge the batteries as it was a
beautiful day!  We then drove by Clif's school at 4:30 pm, just after
this picture was taken:
http://www.outdoorslc.com/story.php?subaction=showfull&id=1232042284&archive=&start_from=&ucat=5

Koin 6 TV did a television report at the 11 o'clock news on Thursday
the 15th, but I am having trouble locating that to link up here.  It
was about 2 minutes or so long, I think.

We charged the car in the Pearl district of Portland on Friday the
16th.  The local neighborhood association leader is a great
photographer and he published these great photos and a story in the
Pearl district neighborhood news online:
http://www.neighborhoodnotes.com/nw/pearl_district/news/2009/01/the_power_of_one/

A non profit organization called Solar Oregon hosted Marcelo and he
did a presentation on Thursday, the 15th in downtown Portland at the
Eco-Trust building.  We actually put the car inside the building for
the night, then brought it back out the next day (I think Dieter took
pictures of it, I know I took a ton of them!)  Here is the write up
that Dieter published the next day in Solar Oregon's online
newsletter.
http://www.solaroregon.org/about/news_folder/zero-gallons-three-wheels-and-10-000-miles

This article was posted about Marcelo by SunStone Circuits, a circuit
board manufacturer we visited.  They put out a big sign and had a
party when we visited (they were a small company)  We got gifts (flash
drive, t-shirts, hats) and a special guided tour, it was really cool
seeing how circuit boards are made!  There are lots and lots of
inspections of quality, I was very surprised!  I was even able to take
some pictures that I hadn't looked at much, I got at least 6 to 8
Gigabytes of pictures and movies stored!  (I was helping Marcelo take
pictures for the documentary he eventually plans to make!)
http://www.salem-news.com/articles/january152009/solar_ride-1-15-09.php

The very last on I am aware of was a reporter in Florence, WA the last
place that I followed Marcelo to.  It was 60 degrees and sooooo
beautiful, truly a halcion winter day on the coast of Oregon!  I
cannot find this article online and am having my new friend, John
Peton get it for me, his cousin lives in Florence and hosted Marcelo
for the night. We strong armed John in the Pearl district on Friday in
Portland to join the team and he brought me back to Portland late
Monday night so I could catch my train on Tuesday from home.  We
picked up a nice retired gentleman named Bill in Salem on Saturday who
stayed with us through Monday, too.

Bill and Laura, John Peton is a friend of Cari (Kari?) who is from
Wenatchee and he also attended her wedding in Wenatchee, small world,
eh?

I am sorry I didn't get to see most of you while I was there, it was a
whirlwind trip, on the go with the absolutely beautiful weather you
all had down there!

We met a wonderful team of Oregon State University students in
Corvallis who made us brunch and fixed our broken trailer wheel, they
were so nice!  They built a solar car of their own for the North
American solar challenge, here is an article about them!
http://www.oregonlive.com/environment/index.ssf/2008/07/osu_students_enter_solar_car_i.html

I have a lot of pictures and some journaling that describes the trip
from my perspective, if you are interested in receiving my personal
pictures and comments, let me know!  I am thinking of writing up my
experiences for a local monthly mailed newspaper, if I can get them
interested in it!

Thanks for all of your support!

Laurie
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