You Have Now Entered the Not-So-Secret Headquarters of The Non-Toxic Avengers....Welcome!

And so it begins...the adventure of a lifetime! After many skillful clicks of the mouse at the ungodly hour of 6am PST, The Non-Toxic Avengers have secured our place in the mighty Mongol Rally 2010! In just 10 short months, we will thunder forth from the UK, headed east in search of excitement, adventure, and some semblance of a road in the deserts of Mongolia. But that's not all...

Never content to simply play by the rules, we're upping the ante in this game, making the 10,000 mile trek in a carbon neutral "greasecar" converted to run on pure vegetable oil, with the goal of obtaining 100% of our fuel from Waste Vegetable Oil collected from restaurants and fast food outfits along the way. With the state of our environment a monumental global concern, it is our goal to prove that adventure can be had, and it is possible to make your mark in the world, without leaving a footprint behind. 

Sounds crazy, you say? All the more reason to do it! We have mountains of preparations ahead of us, and a fortune to raise for some amazing charities, and we plan to keep you all posted every step of the way! So stay tuned for plenty of mischief, mayhem, and madness. We promise, you won't be disappointed!

Sincerely,

On the Road...Week 1

So...about all of those blog updates we promised to you all from the road....well it's been a bit more difficult than we had imagined to find the time to properly update our website, what with the lack of internet connections and the general lack of time we've had to do or see anything beyond what flies past Baldrick's windows in most of the cities we've been in thus far! So yea...sorry about that! Hope this goes a little way towards making it right, and we'll try to be more vigilant in the coming weeks (though we're no longer making any promises, as lord knows where we'll manage to find wifi in the desert!)

So as you've gathered by now, we have NOT yet dropped off of the face of the Earth. We are, in fact, right on course to make it to Ulanbaatar in five weeks time, which is impressive as almost nothing apart from us sticking to the schedule has gone according to plan since we left the UK just over one week ago!  Veg oil has been our big hassle, being MUCH harder to source than even we had imagined it! We've had a couple very generous donations, but since we departed Germany have pretty much had to resort to...let's just say "borrowing it indefinitely", though even that is harder than we could have imagined as most places seem to be on to veg oil bandits and keep their precious waste locked up tightly! You'd think they'd be gateful to have us take the awful smelling stuff off of their hands...but no. So we've made it this far by the skin of our teeth, and as it's only seeming to get harder from here on out we're less confident in our ability to go the whole distance on solely veg oil, but we'll try to do as much as we can!! 

Baldrick, however, remains intact, though the rough roads of the Ukraine (and that's a gross understatement) have given him a pretty thorough beating over the past couple of days! We're hoping our tires hold out at least until Kazakhstan, but regardless we've already started eyeing the various tire retailers we've seen in the past couple of days, wondering if we should go ahead and pick some up, seeing as how we're probably the only team with only the car's spare tire to use in case of a blowout. In fact, I'd venture to say we're perhaps the most underprepared team to depart on this crazy adventure, just comparing ourselves to the various teams we've run into along the way thus far. We've made absolutely no modifications to the car save the veg oil conversion and some new front brake pads and an oil change, we've got no extra tires, up until today we had no maps that took us beyond Odessa, no camp stove (though we do have pots to cook in...), several pieces of electronic equipment that lack the correct adapters to be charged back up again, and until day 3 had a plethora of canned food but no can opener.  I suppose since the rally is all about stupidity, we should win the spirit award if nothing else!!

At any rate, we've made it this far and we intend to go the full distance and party it up in Ulanbaatar!! We've seen and done so many crazy and stupid things since we departed Goodwood that it's nearly impossible to sum it all up in one blog post, so we'll leave you now with the highlights from Mongol Rally 2010, Week 1:

Countries Covered: UK, France, Belgium, Luxembourg, Germany, Austria, Czech Republic, Slovakia, Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Ukraine

 Day 1: Departed Goodwood: Weird Al stalls the car at the start line...waved goodbye to the other teams and all of the cheering supporters, but were unable to honk our horn as we appeared not to have one...should have brought a vuvuzela...

 Day 3: Found the horn by accident while on the autobahn in Germany...turns out it was on the end of the blinker arm...used it generously to make up for not using it at the launch...people around us didn't seem as thrilled as we were...Partied it up at the Czech Out in Klenova Castle

Day 4:  Lost in a crazy festival in Prague. Decided to stay to watch the fireworks.

Day 5: Still lost in Prague...thinking we should start apartment hunting because we may never get out...2 and a half hours later...we make our escape!

Day 6: Lost in Budapest...this is getting to be a trend...got out in only an hour and a half this time though!

Day 7: Incident on a darkened road in Cluj Romania sometime around midnight...can no longer claim that no animals were harmed in the completion of this rally...poor "Jasper"...

Day 8: Had dinner and drinks with The Two Mongoleers at Camping Dracula. Found out that we're not the only murderers on the Mongol Rally...but their kill was much more spectacular than ours...and quite probably illegal....

Day 9: Climbed 1480 stairs to Dracula's castle...he wasn't home...

Day 10: Spent 2 hours at the border to get into Moldova. Drove 2 km across it, and then spent another 2 hours to get into the Ukraine...3 hours later, we're back in Moldova...another 2 km and we're back in the Ukraine. Fearless leader calls bullsh*t on two Ukranian "border guards" trying to sll us bogus "Russian car insurance"...what kind of suckers do they think we are?

Extreme Makeover: Baldrick Edition

As the rally launch gets closer and closer, sending us all into a bit of an excited state of panic, the biggest hurdle of our planning phase is now behind us! Baldrick has now been fully converted to run on vegetable oil!!

It all began at the ungodly hour of 7am on a Saturday morning, when the streets of London were thankfully, relatively empty.  Fearless leader met up with our sponsor, Adrian, of Oilybits.com in Hammersmith, west London, where Baldrick has been living for the past couple of weeks. Despite having only driven a manual car twice before in her life (and only one of those times was on an actual main road), Fearless Leader lived up to her name and jumped behind the wheel, following the Oilybits Hilux (a very impressive beast of a pickup) across west London to the Pit Start Garage, where the work was to be done, managing to only stall the car twice along the way!

Then, a mere 8 hours after our arrival at the garage, the work was done and Baldrick had become a beautiful vegetable oil burning beast! It was perhaps the quickest and most efficient veg oil conversion Adrian had ever accomplished, and what a beautiful job he did for us!! Fearless Leader then took to the road triumphantly (having grown a bit cocky after the success of the drive to the garage) on 100% biodiesel for the trip home!

And that's when things got ugly...not with the biodiesel conversion...that worked like a charm!! Fearless Leader, on the other hand, malfunctioned all over the place!!  Firstly, she managed to get hopelessly lost in West London....never a good idea!  Then, likely due to the stress of being lost and on the wrong side of everything (the road, the car, the city...) all of her driving skills from that morning managed to mysteriously vanish, and she stalled the car so many times that she was actually asked by a passing motorist (who got out of his car and came to the window in the middle of traffic where Baldrick was stalled for about the millionth time) if she was drunk!! Thankfully, Fearless Leader is not a quitter, and once she managed to convince the passer-by that she was, regretably, 100% sober, he allowed her to follow him back to her destination (where he happened to be a neighbor!) Huzzah!

Once Baldrick was safely back in his driveway in Hammersmith, Fearless Leader decided that it was most definitely time for a drink (since she had been accused of being drunk already).  And so she and Adrian from Oilybits, hit up a pub for a quick one before he made the long trip back to the west of England! Talk about a day!! But nevertheless, Baldrick's conversion is done and he's got some brand new Oilybits.com stickers to show for it! Can't wait to add to his decorations as the weeks go on! Check out our gallery for some photos of the conversion courtesy of Oilybits.com, (more pics from us will follow, as soon as Fearless Leader finds the cable for her camera...duh) and stay tuned here for all of the madness that's sure to ensue in the coming weeks, when Fearless Leader and Communications Officer attempt an 1100 mile test run to Loch Ness and back on 100% veg oil! God help us!!

Until next time....

You Say It's Your Birthday...

Today is a very special and bittersweet day here at Avengers HQ...Today we celebrate the birthday of one of the most talented, kind, giving, gentle souls to have ever graced this Earth...and it is in his honor that we are proud to announce the grand opening of The Non-Toxic Avengers Firstgiving Fundraising Page for The Brad Delp Foundation!!

"The Brad Delp Foundation was created by his children, family and friends for the purpose of carrying on Bradley's legacy of compassion, generosity, and kindness. Brad had an uncommon ability and desire to listen, understand, and care about people.
Brad was particularly generous with his time and talent, playing many concerts each year to the benefit of children's causes, anti-violence organizations and school fundraisers, among many others. With the formation of The Brad Delp Foundation, we seek to honor Brad's memory by awarding music related grants, scholarships and funding for school music programs"

We will be accepting donations from now all the way through our travels to Mongolia and beyond in memory of a wonderful human being who we think about and miss every day!! Help us do some great things in his memory, won't you??

The Avengers' Store Grand Opening!!

The moment you all have waited for has finally arrived....The Non-Toxic Avengers' Official Store is now up and open for business!! Just click on our handy new "SHOP" link to view our fancy new t-shirts and drop us an email to order your very own piece of official Avengers gear!! Only $15 makes you the envy of everyone across Europe and Asia who will be drooling over our stylish apparel all summer long! Plus, all profits from T-shirt sales will be going toward our two rally charities: Mercy Corps Mongolia and The Brad Delp Foundation! It's a win-win if I've ever heard of one!!

In other exciting news, we have yet another flea market appearance lined up for this Sunday, June 6, this time around at the Hollywoodland Flea Market, set up under the world-famous Hollywood Sign!! We'll be collecting donations, spreading the good word about veggie power, and selling t-shirts from 8am to 3pm at 2700 N. Beachwood Ave so everyone in the LA area should come out and play with us! It'll be a great day!!

In other news, we are hurtling faster and faster toward the rally launch and the to-do list is piling up on our heels! The biggest hurdle we have yet to overcome are visas, as they are proving to be more difficult than they had at first seemed to be! If we can manage to overcome that giant obstacle, I think it should be smooth sailing until July 24, when things will really get crazy at the Festival of Slow!! Fearless leader has only three weeks left in the good ol' USofA, Communications Officer has five, and Tech Commander has six....and so crunch time is upon us, and we welcome it with open arms!! Look out world, here we come!!

Snowstorms, Sandwiches, and Extreme Croquet

Well Fearless Leader and our "car transporter extraordinaire" have just made it back to California after a wild, wintery weekend in Colorado...yes, I said wintery...yes, it is almost June...someone clearly forgot to tell Colorado that winter is over!! We drove in on Friday night and landed smack in the middle of the snowstorm from hell which effectively shut down the I-70 through Vail.  Not to be deterred, however, we pressed onward, past fleets of big rigs, minivans, even a few SUVs all helplessly stranded in the snow!  At one point, we were even yelled at by a road worker we passed by who insisted "you'll never make it!"  "Like hell we won't!", Fearless Leader defiantly shouted back. "I'm driving to Mongolia!" What kind of adventurists would we be if we let a little snow stop us?? And so onward we pressed, at a mighty 10 miles per hour, slipping and sliding through the snow, but our sturdy, rugged little Mini Cooper (seriously, who'd have thought? But she was GREAT in the snow!) got us through the worst of it and carried us out the other side, where we promptly pulled over in the quaint little mountain town of Frisco and decided to grab a hotel room for the night! 

The next day we made the rest of the drive up to Estes Park where we explored The Stanley Hotel (no word of a lie, the Ghost Hunters Academy RV was parked outside when we drove up) and then spent the afternoon at the Aspen Lodge with a whole assortment of other crazy adventurist types, talking about rally plans, learning all about all of the various Adventurists activities, and listening to a fantastic and inspiring talk by Mr. Jason Lewis. Oh and there were also some amazing cucumber sandwiches, and what was possibly the world's first game of "extreme croquet" on the snow covered front lawn...you really had to be there...

And now after a marathon 15 hour drive home (upon which we saw not a single snowflake, thank god!!) we are back in LA and Fearless Leader is now more aware than ever that we have a mountain of work to get done in the coming months before the rally! Visas are in the works, equipment is steadily being checked off the list...but more imporantly...our next big announcement....we have T-Shirts!!! Stay tuned for a page announcing the arrival of our fancy new eco-friendly team uniforms, available for purchase soon for a mere $15!! (All proceeds go directly to our charities!!)

Meeting Our Public

Well we're happy to report that The Non-Toxic Avengers' first public outing in California was a great success!! We set up a pretty fantastic looking information table at the Atwater Village Farmer's Market, and within minutes had our first donation of $2 from our neighbor, who was selling some pretty fantastic all-natural drinks!  We met a TON of wonderful people who were eager to hear all about our journey, and we even met a guy who had done the rally himself back in 2007! He gave us some great advice AND a $20 donation!!! So we want to extend a BIG thank you to Joyce Chen who was nice enough to donate the space to us, and to everyone who stopped by and talked to us and left us donations! We took in $50 total, which is not bad at all for our first public outing! We're looking forward to doing it again very soon, so stay tuned for details!!  

T-Minus 100...

Yes, it's true. As of this moment there are LESS than 100 days to go until the launch of the mighty Mongol Rally 2010!!  Looks like we're entering...THE FINAL COUNTDOWN....

God, that was a good show...Ok enough silliness....on to more pressing matters. We have begun the process of securing our visas for Russia and Kazakhstan, though Fearless Leader is currently still waiting for her teammates to get their travel insurance sorted before we can send our passports and applications in....ahem....Next items on our list: airfare, vaccinations, and a final blowout push for more sponsors and charity donations!! May is going to be a VERY busy month, indeed!

Beyond that, it seems our group now has an official team mechanic...and to everyone's surprise (and our slight terror) it's going to be Fearless Leader!! You heard right...the lone female travelling with TWO men will be the only one posessing even a slight bit of mechanical knowledge! God help us!!  Training begins next week, thanks to a friend of a friend who happens to be an expert in all things mechanical and biodiesel, and is expected to cover such automotive classics as "name that squiggly piece over there"; "what's that sound?"; "is it supposed to smell like that?"; "yes, that has a function...so no, you can't just take it out"; and "your car will self destruct in 20 seconds".  (Yea, we know...if we make it out of England it'll be a miracle!!)

So that's all the news that's fit to print for now! Be sure all of you Los Angeles locals come out and visit us this Sunday, April 25, at the Atwater Village Farmer's Market from 10am-3pm and make a donation to Mercy Corps Mogolia in honor of the 40th Anniversary of Earth Day (which happens to be tomorrow!!)

Until next time....

Do You Have a Flag???

Not yet!!! But we do have a banner!! Boo-yah!! (Note to self: stop writing blogs when sleep deprived!) Thanks to the good folks at www.greenerprinter.com, The Non-Toxic Avengers are soon-to-be outfitted with a fantabulous eco-friendly banner, announcing our presence to the world at all future team fundraising events (and anywhere else we damned well please!)  What's more, our fancy new piece of flair will be arriving just in time to make its debut at our up-coming meet and greet at the Atwater Village Farmer's Market on Sunday April 25th! In honor of Earth Day, the manager of the market has graciously offered us an information booth at which we plan to have many fun and festive visual aids with which we plan to school the public on all of our shenannigans past, present, and future! We will also be displaying some highly attractive donation jars in which you may deposit funds to be put toward our rally charity, Mercy Corps Mongolia, and/or to help us with some of our team expenses! So clean out your piggy banks, couch cushions, floor mats, and ash trays and come on down to help us out and have some fun!! 

Lots more good stuff in the works so be sure to check in regularly so you don't miss any of the fun!! 

Rockin' the Fundraisers!

Good news! As it turns out, Communications Officer has a VERY cool boss over at TGI Fridays in Newington, New Hampshire! Not only is she cool with him taking two months off of work to participate in the rally this summer, but she is so supportive of what we're doing, that she has graciously offered to host a fundraising event for us at the restaurant!!

Sooo, come one, come all on Wednesday March 31 to TGI Fridays in Newington, New Hampshire for a special "Classic Rock" themed Non-Toxic Avengers Fundraiser, featuring drink specials on classic rock themed cocktails (A "Grateful Dead", anyone?) and Boston beer, the always-fantastic Fridays menu, and more!! Details are being finalized as I blog and will be updated soon, but we guarantee it will be a very special event! 

Also, before I sign off, I want to extend a BIG thank you to Tenley Woodman of the Boston Herald for the wonderful article that appeared on PAGE 2 of today's paper! Here's hoping it helps kick-start our lagging charity donations! We're itching to start donating to the Brad Delp Foundation, but we can't until we meet our requirement for Mercy Corps, so please help us rally the troops to get the rest of the way there and beyond!

Oh, and have I mentioned recently that we love Oilybits.com?? Because we do!! Check out their website!!

A Bittersweet Day

Hopped online today to find that we got a surprise write-up in the Boston Globe, in honor of the third anniversary of the passing of Fearless Leader's father, Brad Delp. The added press has helped brighten an otherwise tough day for us, and we hope that it helps bring in some donations so we can meet our minimum rally requirement ($1700) quickly, allowing us to then get started raising money for the Brad Delp Foundation, in his memory! Remember, no donation is too small to make a BIG difference to us, and to the world!! We love and miss you, Dad!!

                                         Become an Honorary Avenger HERE

RSS Feed

Previous Entries