Almost Running Out of Gas While on Vacation

It has been awhile since I actually had a vacation. That's why last week, my wife and I along with my son said we need to get a break. I call it a reset. While I truly love my job, there is nothing better than getting a break and enjoying what you work for.

Well, all of that started off with a hitch as we were traveling late last Friday. The truly ironic part is that my son was driving, and we were talking about music. He looked at the gauge for the gas and asked me if I wanted to stop. It was well over a hundred miles, and we only had about two hours to reach our destination.

All of this changed when we got caught up in a little traffic, which threw us for a loop. Once we broke out of that, we were down to 25 miles left in gas. This is when my wife woke up and heard us talking about gas. While we were looking for gas stations, there were none close. All of a sudden, the beep came from the car. This was letting us know we were rolling on a prayer. We pulled over in Enterprise, Mississippi with 14 miles left to our destination and no possible way of making it.

We pulled over to two different gas stations and both were either closed or had inoperable gas pumps. At the second gas station, we pulled over and called the police to see if we could get some assistance. The operator was very helpful and patient. There was truly a concern, as we were in Enterprise at 11:00 at night with several cars passing by and unaware of our surroundings. The last time the operator called, she told us a gas station was open about two minutes away. Either she was off a little with the mileage or the nervousness set in, because it seemed a lot longer than two minutes.

We finally got there and the gas station was open, fully operational, and lit up like a Christmas tree. I pumped the gas and we were on our way. This could have ended in a different situation, and it could have thrown things off, including the vacation. However, it was the beginning of a great week in which I'll be talking about all this week. If there is one thing that sat with me after that incident, iIt is to make sure to gas up when it crosses my mind, and not a second later.