Extreme travel, running out of gas

By the odometer readings, Mama and I traveled 2,730 miles in the last week. The destinations in our trip added up to 2,230 miles of travel. The other five hundred miles were in side trips to Bowie, to the beach in Navarre, etc. No wonder we are tired. We got home last night at about 7:30 p.m. We would have been several minutes earlier but we ran out of gas.

As we approached Amarillo, we knew we were low and we were waiting for the “Low Fuel” light to come on. I am pretty sure it has worked in the past but last night it decided it would not help us out. We were about two miles from home, and were talking about making sure Mama got gas first thing in the morning, when the car began to sputter. I made the announcement to Mama that we were out of gas. Of course she did not believe me. (I am not sure why the first option for a woman to any statement a man makes is that of debate.) Regardless, the facts were pretty evident.

I put the car in neutral, and we began to coast off the freeway. We were doing so well that I coasted through a stop sign, turned left under the freeway and coasted up the approach to the gas pumps at a Love’s station at that exit. We ran out of momentum about ten feet from the pumps. Mama tried to push but that was a “no go” so she sat in the driver’s seat and I got us to the pump. It took several tries to start the car after we got gas, but it finally fired up.

The way it worked out made it kind of fun, but we probably won’t challenge that last quarter tank again.

Mama is nursing a bad sunburn. She always gets slightly burned her first day at the beach, but this time all of us got a burned – except the little ones, they were lathered up pretty thoroughly. We all lost track of time and Mama forgot to put any sunscreen on her back. That is where the burn is the worst. We backtracked to discover that we had been in the sun for almost three hours – over two hours past my normally allowed time. It made the two days travel toward home uncomfortable. My burn has already faded into a tan, but hers is still several days away.

While we were with Cori and Nate we played around with the two herbal kits I bought at the training I took in Indianapolis. I showed Cori and Nate a very simple way to determine if something was needed by your body or not. They will have fun with that. We also tested the kids for basic herbal and food needs. Some results were surprising, some were not. It’s the little things that always get us; black tea, Milton Bakery doughnuts, processes meats and cheeses, snack foods, etc.

Eating healthy is more expensive and time consuming than going the quick, processed, microwave-it-and-eat-it way. Cori is very good about preparing foods that are healthy, but there are always pet foods and pet tastes that cause us to stray from the path toward totally healthy eating.

Grandma is leaving tomorrow for a month in West Virginia. Chase is leaving on the tenth for about two weeks in New Jersey. We are leaving on the 16^th for two weeks in Florida. For a few days we can settle into our normal routine but only for a few days.