John Lee Hooker is on the stereo— "I love you, Bonnie." Oh, yeah. Boogie, boogie... We're driving! Yeah... oh, we're driving on EMPTY! We pull over and ask where the nearest gas pumps are. I see... 38km down the highway... We grit our teeth and set off. I've got the Caravan going about as slow as I can get away with. I'm remembering coming across country with Dr. Dave back in 1979. We were driving from San Diego, CA, to Buffalo, NY on something like $50. We coasted down every single hill with the motor shut off, riding crazy fast in neutral until gravity gave up on us. Today I do this as well. We've got construction stops, and there is more traffic than I would like— but thankfully this road seems to be mostly downhill! We count down the kms. I watch for places ahead I might be able to stop the truck in. There's a lot of construction, and the shoulder seems to be concrete barriers much of the time. Hell, I knew the gas was pretty low, but I had counted on being able to buy some in a big town like Spences Bridge!
Dave doesn't look really happy, and yeah, it is mostly my responsibility to see that we're gassed up. I do the driving and look after the truck. But Dave is cool and gets busy taking pictures as we coast.... coast to coast... hmmm... has a ring to it...
Light at the end of the tunnel! Gas!! We made it!! What a truck! Dave says he'd rather not be running so close to empty again, and I agree with him. On my "Fear and Loathing" trip with Dr. Dave we woke up in the desert, still moving at a good clip, with the car's dashboard on fire! So Big Dave and I are way ahead of that adventure. Who says you can't learn from experience? Soon we're in White Rock, lunch on our minds. A little scary, but a beautiful ride. And no flames. I've really been looking forward to my visit here. It's going to be a great couple of days!
No comments:
Post a Comment