For those of you who haven't heard, we recently bought a van. It's a 2005 Nissan Quest and we love it. I call it the Radmobile. Danielle calls it the van. You can all vote on whose name is better, but before I forget:
Warning! Husband Post! This is a warning! You've been warned.
We decided to become van people. No, we weren't dreading it. No, it didn't make us feel old. No, we weren't "giving in." No to all the other stereotypes people use to bash vans before admitting they're awesome. Our van is just awesome. Parenthood is awesome, so vans are awesome, simple as that.
We wanted to pay cash, so that put us in the market for a used van. As we shopped around online we noticed a trend among Utah van owners: They all drive their vans to death, and they all think they're worth $5000 MORE than little Miss Kelly Blue Book does. Even at 250k miles people were wanting over $10,000 for their 15-year-old van. It got ridiculous, so we got creative.
Danielle's dad works in Oregon kinda-sorta-but-not-really near Portland, so we started looking at listings from up there and found MUCH better deals. We picked a winner, Danielle's dad test-drove it, we wired the cash, and we became van people. The only issue left was how to actually GET the van...
The plan was that we were going to give "Gwampa" Dorius our Alero to replace a car that was giving him some grief and he would hand us the keys to our "new" van. So we settled on a date and a meeting place: Vale, Oregon. I looked it up on Google Maps and I could actually HEAR the tumbleweeds clogging their Main Street, but it was almost exactly halfway between him and me in driving time so we decided to meet at Vale's premier dining spot, the Starlite Cafe.
The trip there was uneventful, if a little rainy. The biggest incident I had was turning the wrong way down a one-way street and being greeted by the upthrown arms of a grumpy ambulance driver, but that happened IN Vale, so I figured the consequences wouldn't be too drastic seeing as I was about to switch cars and skip town forever. We met up at the cafe and I bought us each a slice of pie (the pie was fantastic, by the way, and if you ever drive through Vale, OR you should definitely stop in and grab a slice).
We finished up, switched our stuff over to our new cars, said goodbye, and went our separate ways. I drove back the way I had come, seeing the fronts of all the signs I had only known the backs of on the way up. I stopped to grab some dinner a couple of hours down the road at a Wendy's, then I was back at it.
Here's where I think some visuals will help the story. (FINALLY, I know, sorry).
You see, the instrument panel isn't in the usual place. It's all over in the middle so the wife can tell me to slow down without having to be too obvious about peeking at the speedometer. And you see those lights on the right? Those are all the "buckle seatbelt," "service engine," "eject passengers" indicator lights that don't seem important until they're lit up.
After Wendy's I get another hour or so down the road when I hear some sort of "ding, ding, ding" sound coming from the van. What are you telling me, van? What's wrong? My kids don't scream to tell me they're ok, and cars don't ding to tell me they're working fine.
As I'm doing 80 down the highway I lean over to try to see what's happening when I notice it.
Ayup. The gas light is on and I haven't seen a gas station in... Shoot. It just hit me that the Wendy's where I ate my dinner a little over an hour ago? It was AT A GAS STATION.
Dang.
"Ok, Google, Where's the nearest gas station?" My map pulls up with a couple of gas stations about an hour behind me (presumably one with a Wendy's built into the side of it) and a Flying J about an hour ahead of me. My gas gauge is down to what my wife calls "one little gas guy," just like this:
But with about a half a tank less.
Double dang.
I set my cruise control and I start fiddling with the console trying to see if the van will give me an estimate on how many miles I have left. I find a "DTE" setting and figure that to be "Distance To Empty." I click on it and my console reads "DTE: 18 Miles."
ALL THE DANGS.
Ok. Ok! Ok ok ok ok ok.... So, if I flip around I'll waste gas by slowing down, then accelerating back up to freeway speeds going the other direction. If I keep going I'll at least get 18 miles closer to home before my car sputters and dies. I decide to push on and hope for the best.
As my soon-to-be useless vehicle barrels down the empty highways I'm gripping the wheel with white knuckles and trying to convince the engine to keep on running. "Come on, just get me to a gas station. ANY gas station. I promise you'll get the best oil, premium gasoline, a full detailing, all the best of everything as long as you DON'T DIE IN THE MIDDLE OF NOWHERE."
DTE 17 Miles. I see a rest stop, but for some reason they don't sell gas at rest stops. HOW DOES THAT MAKE ANY SENSE? I think maybe there's a jeep with a gas can or someone who can do something for me, but if not then I'll have wasted a stop and, again, have to accelerate up to highway speeds just to try the road again. I also realize that the people on my side of the highway are probably just as clueless as I am about when the next gas station will be coming up, so that's no help. I decide to risk it and push on.
DTE 16 Miles. It's here that I realize that the rest stop would have been a great place to just stop and wait for the roadside assistance guy to bring me gas. And now I've passed the last exit for who knows how many miles... More dang. My knuckles are getting sore, the sun is almost down, and I'm starting to wonder if the roadside assistance will find me before the hillbilly cannibal clan that absolutely MUST live behind one of these hills.
DTE 15 Miles. All I'm seeing are sheep and the road. No houses. No gas stations. No signs of hope. My knuckles are sore and I consider calling roadside assistance and guessing at where I'll break down just to get them on the road a little sooner.
Suddenly I see a sign that I can barely make out in the failing light: "Something something something Fuel Stop. Something 15 Miles something. Something something!"
DTE 14 Miles. Ok, so this DTE thing must be wrong because I am NOT going to break down in the middle of nowhere and be dinner for the Clampett's less fortunate non-oil-finding cousins from Idaho. I'm going to make it even if I have to pop it in neutral and COAST for the last mile.
DTE 10 Miles. I start realizing that sign was pretty worn down. Abandoned, even. Ma and Pa probably closed up shop in 1983 and all I'm gonna find is a blown-out husk of a building. Maybe some raccoons.
DTE 8 Miles. My cell phone has no reception. Probably because raccoons don't have cell phones and hillbilly cannibals would just make them into soup.
DTE * Miles. WHAT? You what? DTE WHAT? Now my car isn't even telling me how much more highway I get to see before I'm inevitably turned into bobcat food. It won't even take a guess, and has written me off as a lost cause. Like the One Ring seeking Sauron, this van is just using me to get to it's next owner.
DTE * Miles. I see an exit. There's nothing there on either side. Maybe there's a gas station a few miles off the highway, but I decide my corpse will be found sooner if it's by the road.
DTE * Miles. I start to REALLY regret leaving my gun at home.
DTE * Miles. Hey look! More cows!
DTE * Miles. I see another exit. This one with a blue sign under it. Probably one of those "No Services" signs. I almost drive by when I see a VERY faded gas symbol.
Yes, that's a screenshot from Google Maps of the exact sign I saw. But picture it at dusk after nearly ten hours on the road and apparently ten years after this photo was taken because the sign was NOT that easy to see.
I don't see any other signs or anything indicating there's actually a gas station there, but I figure I'll chance it. To badly paraphrase Matt Damon on Interstellar, "These are the best chances to find a gas station I've had in a while."
I pull off the exit and go left over the highway. Finally I see a gas station canopy and an old building next to it. I think "I'M SAVED" until I notice a donkey wandering through who seems to run the place. Now, I might just be a city slicker, but most functioning gas stations I've been to don't have vagrant livestock infestations. My heart sinks and I prepare to turn back around, but at the last minute I see the donkey is behind a fence. And he has friends! No, not gas station attendants. More animals! In all I count two donkeys, a sheep, and a couple of llamas. Or alpacas. I never learned the difference. Don't bother telling me, because I don't care.
Anyway, the point is it's (sort of) a petting zoo! I get closer and I notice the gas pumps look new! And functional! I pull up, joyously hop out of the Radmobile (yes, it did its job so it gets its pet name back), and feed the machine my card. Within a minute I'm filling my thirsty van with gas and pumping my fist, screaming "I DID IT!" for some reason.
Once the tank is full I start to actually look around.
Here's the petting zoo.
Here's the sign to the store, which has posted hours of "Sunup till Sundown." It was close enough to sundown that they were closed so I didn't get to give awkwardly enthusiastic hugs to anyone inside.
And the sign matches the receipt, which I thought was pretty cool.
After I got my adrenaline and endorphins under control I hopped back in the van and finished my drive home. I told Danielle this whole story over Voxer knowing she would (rightly) point out how dumb I was to not fill up at the gas pump 20 feet from where I sat to eat my Junior Bacon Cheeseburger. I proactively pointed out that now I had a story to blog about.
That seemed to make her happy.
