Dreamer hits the road in a biofueled RV

TACOMA — References to beat writer Jack Kerouac and gonzo journalist Hunter S. Thompson might not be what you'd expect from an RV-show exhibitor.

But then, times and customers are changing.

The baby-boom generation is now the target audience for those new motor homes, and many of them would recognize those cultural references.

Still, Ty Adams, 28, decided he should look corporatelike, just like the 45 other exhibitors at the Tacoma Fall RV Show, which ended Sunday.

He wore a shirt with a logo and had plenty of brochures, a handy laptop and cellphone, a clean look and a ready smile.

But unlike the other exhibitors at the show, most trying to sell one of 500 RVs on display at the Tacoma Dome, Adams wasn't trying to sell anything but a concept.

He gave up his day job last November and used all his savings to travel 15,000 miles around the country in a 34-foot RV he named the "bio Trekker."

"Some people might call it a strange financial decision or a half-baked scheme or a desperate attempt to get out of having a 'real job.' I call it a dream," Adams wrote on his Web site, www.biotrekker.com.

His dream is to sell the idea of RVs powered by biodiesel. That's all Adams uses.

The baby-boomer crowds are listening to him, often asking detailed questions about how biodiesel works.

They ask the difference between biodiesel and ethanol. (Biodiesel is from vegetable oil and sometimes recycled restaurant grease; ethanol is made from corn and is mixed into regular gasoline.)

They walk to the back of his spic-and-span RV, and, after he cranks up the Cummins 5.9-liter, 325-horsepower engine, sniff the exhaust for the famous French-fries smell.

They ask where biodiesel can be purchased. He provides them with a list and a Web site, www.nearbio.com.

They tell him of their frustrations at not seeing enough diesel RVs for sale.

Among those stopping by were Mike and Pam Abernathy, of Gig Harbor.

At 62, he's a retired deputy district attorney from San Bernardino County in California.

"We looked at several nice RV units, but they all have these big gasoline motors, instead of diesel motors," he said. "Getting eight miles to the gallon is crap."

For Adams, the biodiesel-RV adventure also has been an introduction to a life he hadn't previously much considered.

He did work for five years as a writer and editor in the marketing department of the Monaco Coach Corp. in Coburg, Ore., a maker of luxury diesel motorhomes.

But even while at Monaco, he'd at most spent a day in an RV while doing a story.

He had always considered himself a backpack guy, camping in a tent, water dripping on his forehead from an overnight thunderstorm.

"Isn't that how Kerouac would have us do it?" he said.

But the notion of promoting biodiesel kept cropping up in his thinking. So he decided to do it.

Adams had bought a house, and he sold it for $20,000 profit. He had $10,000 in savings.

Monaco sold him one of its diesel RVs at about a $60,000 discount, for $108,000.

Adams took out a mortgage to pay for it, and his monthly payments are $615, "actually less than the mortgage if you own a house."

He figures he needs $1,500 a month for his various costs (he's gotten $1,500 in free fuel from a couple of companies). He earns about $2,000 a month from freelance writing.

"You can actually live pretty cheaply in these things," he said.

He's also had his share of adventures.

On his Web site, Adams has written about dropping by an outdoor music festival in Lawrence, Kan., and fishtailing his 30,000-pound RV on a snowy Oregon highway.

"I feel like Hunter S. Thompson's alter ego," he wrote about being at the Kansas festival. "I have to argue that it's almost more of a trip to be sober in a crowd of the drunk, the high ... "

Adams says he has no regrets.

"I know it's a little hokey, but from a personal standpoint, it's about being able to look at the kids or grandkids of a future generation in the eye, and say, 'I did something for you,' " he said.

A baby boomer couldn't have said it better.

Erik Lacitis: 206-464-2237 or elacitis@seattletimes.com