Gas Gauge Blues

Our Winnipeg trip this past summer was very memorable; a thoroughly enjoyable trip. The main reason we went was for Shauna’s parents’ 50^th Anniversary surprise party, which was a rousing success , by the way. Have I already mentioned that? Probably, in past posts. Shauna and her brother Gary planned it perfectly!

So we knew we were going to Winnipeg in the summer. The reason we decided to drive rather than fly was because we’d gotten a newer car recently, complete with cruise control and air conditioning. Anyone that’s ever driven across the prairies for a day and a half knows what a windfall that is! This was to be the longest trip we’d since embarked upon with this car. It went really well, all things considered. Except…

Everything’s bigger in the prairies. Especially distances. And me being the native BC lower mainlander proved not to have a solid handle on that concept. We had planned our route to take us south at Creston to dip into Idaho, then across Montana and South Dakota. All was going well until we (‘we’ meaning ‘me’) decided we had “plenty of gas” to get us to the next dot on the map. I seriously believed that at the time. My mistake was inserting math into a summer driving equation. To this day, I still think mathematically it should’ve worked. Especially when flat roads and steady-state cruise-controlled speeds are factored in. However…

The passage of a month’s time since we returned home has dulled my memory as to specifics, but we were still probably 50 miles away from the next “big” town, i.e. anything with a gas pump, when I started to notice the digital bars of the gas gauge disappearing seemingly at a faster rate that they had been doing on the other side of the half-a-tank indicator. Four bars...OK, we’ll make it. Three bars…Huh? Where’d that bar go? Two bars…Crap, don’t let Shauna see this. I’ll just move my hand slowly down the side of the steering wheel to block her view of the gas gauge.

One bar.

One lonely bar.

When was the last time you felt that deep thud in the pit of your stomach when something has gone horribly wrong? Perhaps a dog ran out in front of your car and you had to slam on the brakes, narrowly avoiding a collision and/or loss of control of the vehicle. There are lots of similar scenarios, many of which I don’t even want to think about, so I won’t be-labour the issue trying to create a list. But I’m reasonably sure you know that feeling. It was surprising to me how physically I felt that punch in the gut as the 2^nd to last bar of the fuel gauge winked out. With something like 25 miles to go on a lonely stretch of prairie highway, with literally miles between homesteads, and fading daylight, I was literally almost sick.

This trip has again revived my appreciation of guardian angels. I was trying not to panic as I scanned the horizon for some sign of civilization, i.e. anything with a gas pump. Sure enough, a line of trees I had seen approaching turned out to be a side road. I slowed down and made the turn, unsure if this smattering of houses included any services at all. I drove slowly down the gravel road past neatly maintained houses on either side. No sign of businesses, and no obvious gas stations. We shortly got to the end of the road, terminated by a grain elevator at the railway tracks. Still no gas station.

OK, while starting to panic I had one idea left. With the low-gas indicator lamp now illuminated I drove slowly back up the road towards the highway where I had seen someone enter a house as we turned off. I would have to go to the door and humbly ask if I could buy some gas. Surely someone would have a jerry can on hand for filling their LawnBoy riding tractor.

I pulled in to the driveway, got out of the car and made a conscious effort to try not to seem rattled. I know in Vancouver I don’t generally answer the door after dark if I’m not expecting someone. But this was rural Montana on a warm summer’s early evening. I knocked on the screen door. In a matter of seconds a young woman opened the door and then the screen. I said “Hi” and quickly stated my fuel crisis and asked if I’d somehow missed the gas station in this community. To my utter shock she said, “No, actually there’s a pump just down this road, towards the railway tracks.” I was stunned. I replied I’d just come from that direction and hadn’t seen a gas station. Apparently they do things a bit differently in small farming whistle-stops. The car-repair garage I had already seen did in fact have a single gas pump at the side of the building. No illuminated sign was needed because all the locals knew it was there.

“But,” I stammered, “it’ll be closed by now, won’t it?” I had seen no signs of life in any buildings besides houses.

“Yes, it’s closed, but as long as you’ve got a credit card, it should work just fine for ya.” I thanked her very much for the information and walked back to the car, hoping like heck she couldn’t detect that my legs were shaking.

Twenty minutes later we were back on the highway. Funny how much quicker that next 25 miles past.