Monday, June 06, 2011

It's A Miracle!


After a nice visit at Nancy and Greg's, we set off on the rather monotonous
drive across southwest Oklahoma, north Texas and eastern New Mexico.
We're very happy with our Toyota Corrolla. It gets excellent gas mileage
too. Since we left on this trip, we've averaged about 35 miles per gallon.
There is a pretty neat little feature that tells you the "Range" of your fuel.
In other words, it lets you know how many miles you have left in your
tank before you're on empty...or in this case, On Walk! Driving west of
Tucumcari, New Mexico, we started to run low on gas and I nervously
watched the gauge as the mileage available got lower and lower. A few
minutes earlier, I had passed up one station, because it was too expensive.
I regretted that decision as I turned off the air conditioner and tried to
coast down hills on Interstate 40. The only signs I saw for gas noted that
it was 15 miles away. My "range" meter said I had 10 miles left. Uh oh.
But then...on the horizon, we came up to this station, named MILAGRO,
which is Spanish for Miracle. How appropriate! I looked at the "range"
meter and it said 6 miles. In other words, I would have run out of gas
in 6 miles. After we got into the car, I measured the distance to the
previously advertised station, and it would have taken us 9 miles to get
there. In other words, I would have been walking for 3 miles one way to
get a can of gas, and another 3 miles back to fill it up. I promised Lynn
that I wouldn't let it get that low again. Someone was definitely watching
out for us!

2 comments:

Anonymous said...

Well, well well, it's time to make my yearly wish of Happy Flag Day to my favorite vexillologist. I hope you're proudly displaying a flag wherever you might be.

See you in October.
Phil
A Fan of Flags

Tom said...

Thanks Phil! It has indeed been a Happy Flag Day! See you in October as well!