Casa Grande, AZ: Driving On Empty

Mary Lynn thinks I should share with you part of the fun we had the other evening on our drive back from Yuma.


Last Monday, after spending the afternoon in Mexico we went back through Yuma headed for Casa Grande, which is about 3 hours away.

We passed an RV dealer and noticed they carried Tiffin motor homes, so we stopped for about half an hour to look at the RV we want to get some time in the future. The Allegro Bus is a little longer than we have now however it seems a whole lot bigger on the inside. Very cool.

Anyhow, the sun went down as we were driving east leaving in its wake a beautifully clear night with almost no moon. Lots of stars visible as we traveled through the desert that is almost entirely empty. I mean really empty; 180 miles of open desert with only one or two small towns along the way.

MLA & I became totally engrossed in looking at and enjoying the stars as we discussed how different things are in Mexico. Next thing I know the car's fuel alarm lights up telling us we had 16 miles of gas left before we changed from a motorized vehicle into a very heavy paper weight.

Normally, if this happens you simply get fuel at the next exit, which according to our GPS was 14 miles away. Okay, 14 miles to go and 16 miles of fuel; close but doable. And that's what I confidently told MLA.

Except when we arrived at the exit 14 miles later, there was no gas station. According to the GPS we now had to go 5 miles to the next exit with the fuel range reading 2 miles of gas left. I had already slowed down from the posted speed limit of 75 to 60 mph. I now slowed down to 40 miles an hour, trying to make the gas last as long as possible. I put on the emergency blinkers to keep from being rear-ended by the (fortunately) sparse over-taking traffic.

Of course, Murphy's Law (anything that can go wrong will go wrong) continued to reveal itself. We finally make it to the following exit only to have the GPS tells us to turn right and follow that road for another 3 miles! And the mileage range is now showing 1 mile's worth of fuel left in the gas tank. This road was completely dark; not a street light anywhere in sight. Nor could we see any lights that might mark a gas station. Still, all we could do at this point was hope the GPS was correct about there being a gas station 3 miles down the road.

Oh, and by the way, the road was under construction. There was absolutely no place to pull over. I mean no place. The road bed next to us was at least 1 foot lower than the road bed we were on. Great.

So I immediately began my defensive strategy. I told MLA I forgave her. To say she was shocked is an incredible understatement. When she finally recovered her ability to speak she asked me why I was forgiving her. I explained she was the navigator and as such, she was responsible for the directions AND for keeping track of our fuel situation. Amazingly, she did not hit me or yell at me...

By now the gas gauge showed empty and the mileage range had been on zero for over two miles. We still had a mile to go. Both of us were sweating bullets with the vision of running out of gas and blocking the only travel lane on a pitch black road. Yee Haw!

Of course, as we got closer to the intersection we could see the gas station on the other side of the street once you went through the light. And of course the light turned red well before we arrived at the intersection. Our car's engine stuttered a few times just to make it interesting however the stoplight turned green and I was able to coast into the gas station.

Our CR-V has a 16 gallon fuel tank and I put 16.4 gallons into the car. Don't ask me how we made it, I don't know. I do know that MLA forgave me immediately for 'forgiving' her when it wasn't her fault. What a gal!

In any event, we are talking now and MLA is taking her responsibilities as navigator much more seriously. And I'm helping her with those responsibilities, nice guy that I am...

See Ya!