00P'S

Jane working on her tan.




OK OK OK. Before anyone says anything, it was my fault. But.......

We were driving along, west bound on the I 10, we had just crossed the state line from Florida into Alabama, when the engine just died. No warning, no mis fire, no warning buzzers or lights, it just died. I pulled over to the nearside, as far off the road as possible, and stopped. What the hell is wrong with it? The fuel gauge says we have over a quarter of a tank of diesel, so that can't be it...........can it? We call Good Sam, our breakdown service. Twenty five minuets later we get answered. As I am explaining what happened to the operator, I started to do a mental add up of the miles we had done since the last fill up, way back in April 08... Yes that's right, 08, at the BP in Zolfo Springs. To cut a long story short, we had travelled over 820 miles since we last filled up, and had used the generator goodness knows how many hours. We must have run our of diesel. The gauge says over one quarter full, but common sense says 820 miles, 100 gallon tank, 8mpg., yep, we are out of fuel.
I was going to stop at a travel center just before the state line, but the price was $2.49 a gallon, and I thought I'm not paying that much for diesel, I would wait until we get to Alabama.
The good news is, the 5 gallon of fuel the breakdown guy brought was free. The bad news?
When the fuel was poured into the tank, the engine still would not fire, so he had to "prime it".
The charge for anything other than delivering and pouring into the tank, is $125. an hour, or part thereof. Yes the priming, all of 5 minuets, cost us $120. Or it would have if we had that much in cash on us. I had $110 and change, which he accepted. Bottom line. I didn't pay $2.49 a gallon, I paid $22.00c a gallon, and spent 3 hours on the side of the interstate.
Glad it was only running out of fuel, (the first time in my life ever, I might add) as it could have been much worse
than $110.
But like I said at the start, it wasn't all my fault...........