It's a hot day in August 2013, and we find ourselves sitting in our camp chairs in the sand at the side of Interstate 80, just outside of Fernley, Nevada. We had called AAA, since we ran out of gas. Always trying to make lemonade out of lemons, my husband, Doug got out our fold-up camp chairs, put them in the shade of a nice green sign that said "Fernley next 3 exits". There we sat to wait for the tow truck, also covered by our umbrella with one broken rib, sharing sips of water from our last refillable water bottle. As I searched in my purse for something, anything.... I found a cake batter flavored Chapstick and some artificial tear eye drops. Looking up to offer these to Doug, I see him splashing water on his face and neck. "Wait! What are you doing! We have to save that! It's our last water!"
"But it feels so good when the breeze hits you.", he explained. He put the cap back on the bottle, tried some of my Chapstick, but refused the eye drops. "I know the tow truck will come soon. We'll be fine."
I, of course took notes on our situation, and took pictures.
Our 2004 Prius has been a real trooper on this, the 117th day of our two week retirement trip. It's not "her" fault. We had stopped for lunch in Winnemucca at the Griddle Restaurant, and I suppose we felt so satisfied with our nice meal, that we didn't remember that the alarm had gone off earlier that told us that we were nearly out of gas. The warning light had actually come on, and beeped, before lunch, usually signaling that we still had 30 to 50 more miles. The next sign we saw said that the junction of I-95 was 10 miles away, so we were confident that there would be a gas station there. NOT!! There were just a few old and abandoned buildings.
The next town was 36 miles away, Fernley.... in the desolate, hot, desert.
We had to believe that we could make it, since there wasn't any town for less miles in every direction. I suggested that we sing Jesus songs...songs that we've known in our lives from Sunday school, and later in our lives, to comfort us. We drove along, singing, sometimes in harmony, and occasionally petitioning St. Anthony to "please come around, a gas station is needed, and can't be found", as Helen, my mother-in-law used to chant. (St. Anthony is actually my hero, and pays lots of attention to my petitions.)
Doug suggested that we cut to 60 mph and then 50 mph, even though the speed limit was 75. I started coasting down any down-sloped hills, trying to save the gas engine on the Prius and using the electric one. If I saw an 18-wheeler gaining on us, I flashed my hazard lights a few times to give them the heads up, so they'd have time to see us going slow and change lanes. On the screen display, we could see the levels on each engine, and suddenly the dashboard lights lit up with !! and Caution symbols! We knew we were out of gas, but Doug said, "Don't let the car stop! Just let the electric engine take us as far as it can!" The electric engine gave us a little hope.
We decided to get into the emergency lane and leave the hazard blinkers on, to let all the trucks go past us at 80 mph, and to see how far the battery would take us. There was a long hill ahead. I kept my foot on the gas peddle gently, and we slowly marched up that hill, inching along, sometimes down to 8 mph. Our hearts were beating fast, and since we had turned of the air conditioner, the sweat started breaking out. We actually started chanting "I think I can, I think I can!" My legs felt so tense just to keep up the pace and not change the momentum. Every inch, the car carried us up what we thought was the final the hill, was another inch we wouldn't have to walk.... we thought!
Finally, the electric engine gave up the ghost and stopped! The car had just had it! Poor thing. It had brought us, crawling all the way up a long incline on it's battery alone!
An addition to our stories of the Prius and the iPhone, is that instead of Doug pushing the car up the hill, as he suggested...... we called AAA (luckily we had a connection!). They arranged for a tow truck to come with 3 gallons of gas. The woman on the phone first made sure we were in a safe place. Doug said, as he looked at the big trucks hurtling by, and the heat rising from the sand, "Relatively safe." She wanted to know what the number of the exit was that we were closest to. We really didn't know, so we walked together with our umbrella till we could each squint to see that it was exit 30, not exit 80, and then walked back to the car, holding hands, stepping down into sand that had sudden holes made from snakes or rodents. She told us it would be about a half hour, and that the truck was being dispatched.
When we got back near the car, Doug decided to make the best of it, and brought our camp chairs over to the shade of the highway sign.
We sat there getting excited whenever we heard a truck. Some folks waved at us as they passed, smiling at us since I suppose we looked pretty silly,with our broken umbrella and all. The AAA guy came, grinning at us as well, and proceeded to deposit the 3 gallons into our thirsty car. He told us that there wouldn't have been any gas at till the third exit, so it wouldn't have helped to coast to the next one. He waited to make sure that everything started up fine, and we were off and running again.....to the next gas station.
We patted and stroked our little car on it's dashboard and apologized. (We really did.) Our little chariot had been good and faithful for all these miles, and look how we treated it. We also thanked God for keeping us safe and giving us peace on this stretch of highway. Three more days, little car. Three more days.
"But it feels so good when the breeze hits you.", he explained. He put the cap back on the bottle, tried some of my Chapstick, but refused the eye drops. "I know the tow truck will come soon. We'll be fine."
I, of course took notes on our situation, and took pictures.
Our 2004 Prius has been a real trooper on this, the 117th day of our two week retirement trip. It's not "her" fault. We had stopped for lunch in Winnemucca at the Griddle Restaurant, and I suppose we felt so satisfied with our nice meal, that we didn't remember that the alarm had gone off earlier that told us that we were nearly out of gas. The warning light had actually come on, and beeped, before lunch, usually signaling that we still had 30 to 50 more miles. The next sign we saw said that the junction of I-95 was 10 miles away, so we were confident that there would be a gas station there. NOT!! There were just a few old and abandoned buildings.
The next town was 36 miles away, Fernley.... in the desolate, hot, desert.
We had to believe that we could make it, since there wasn't any town for less miles in every direction. I suggested that we sing Jesus songs...songs that we've known in our lives from Sunday school, and later in our lives, to comfort us. We drove along, singing, sometimes in harmony, and occasionally petitioning St. Anthony to "please come around, a gas station is needed, and can't be found", as Helen, my mother-in-law used to chant. (St. Anthony is actually my hero, and pays lots of attention to my petitions.)
Doug suggested that we cut to 60 mph and then 50 mph, even though the speed limit was 75. I started coasting down any down-sloped hills, trying to save the gas engine on the Prius and using the electric one. If I saw an 18-wheeler gaining on us, I flashed my hazard lights a few times to give them the heads up, so they'd have time to see us going slow and change lanes. On the screen display, we could see the levels on each engine, and suddenly the dashboard lights lit up with !! and Caution symbols! We knew we were out of gas, but Doug said, "Don't let the car stop! Just let the electric engine take us as far as it can!" The electric engine gave us a little hope.
We decided to get into the emergency lane and leave the hazard blinkers on, to let all the trucks go past us at 80 mph, and to see how far the battery would take us. There was a long hill ahead. I kept my foot on the gas peddle gently, and we slowly marched up that hill, inching along, sometimes down to 8 mph. Our hearts were beating fast, and since we had turned of the air conditioner, the sweat started breaking out. We actually started chanting "I think I can, I think I can!" My legs felt so tense just to keep up the pace and not change the momentum. Every inch, the car carried us up what we thought was the final the hill, was another inch we wouldn't have to walk.... we thought!
Finally, the electric engine gave up the ghost and stopped! The car had just had it! Poor thing. It had brought us, crawling all the way up a long incline on it's battery alone!
An addition to our stories of the Prius and the iPhone, is that instead of Doug pushing the car up the hill, as he suggested...... we called AAA (luckily we had a connection!). They arranged for a tow truck to come with 3 gallons of gas. The woman on the phone first made sure we were in a safe place. Doug said, as he looked at the big trucks hurtling by, and the heat rising from the sand, "Relatively safe." She wanted to know what the number of the exit was that we were closest to. We really didn't know, so we walked together with our umbrella till we could each squint to see that it was exit 30, not exit 80, and then walked back to the car, holding hands, stepping down into sand that had sudden holes made from snakes or rodents. She told us it would be about a half hour, and that the truck was being dispatched.
When we got back near the car, Doug decided to make the best of it, and brought our camp chairs over to the shade of the highway sign.
We patted and stroked our little car on it's dashboard and apologized. (We really did.) Our little chariot had been good and faithful for all these miles, and look how we treated it. We also thanked God for keeping us safe and giving us peace on this stretch of highway. Three more days, little car. Three more days.
Great story, Pat . . . Fernley is a nice small town with lots of services . . . drove thru there on Aug 3. I DID get a big grin out of you two runing out of gas of all things . . . with a Prius?
ReplyDelete