Fuming!

The drive from Barstow, CA to Las Vegas is a pretty uneventful trip. Once you escape the haze that is Los Angeles it is a slow uphill drive into the mountains. I believe at one point we were at 4000ft elevation.

Yep--it may be uneventful to many. But for us lowlanders...or whatever people who live near sea level are called, a sign like this is pretty cool.

Although I said the drive should be uneventful, the landscape was anything but! The sky was so crisp and blue. The last time I was in this area I truly did not appreciate the beauty the desert landscape held.

So, I said this trip (Barstow to Vegas) should have been uneventful, but it was not. This was the inaugural trip for our new Jeep SRT8. This is an awesome performance SUV, I will admit. Its 6.1 liter engine has a menacing rumble when idling. Why am I telling you this...I'm getting there. To this point the performance of the vehicle was spectacular. It maneuvered the mountains like they were speed bumps. Accelerating was effortless.

All this equates to...it is a pig on gas consumption (I affectionately refer to the Jeep as "the pig"--and now, so does Rich). On our barstow to Vegas leg I had the fortune of driving, and watching the gas gauge go down...and down.

As I scanned the landscape for the next gas station, I would turn to Rich and said, "Do you want to stop at this station?" Only to hear--"No, let's go to the next station." But it didn't come. I looked at the gauge that read 30 miles until empty, 20, 18, and oh my god there was nothing but desert ahead of us!!! And then the gauge read 3 miles to empty. I was near panic, but in the distance was an exit. As we approached it we were about to breath a sigh of relief. But when we got off at the exit the buildings were abandoned. All I could think about was which one of us would have to walk to the next exit.

But I did not stop the Jeep and re-entered the highway. There was another exit in the distance that I had to reach. And now came the drive of my life as I like to refer to it. I placed my foot firmly on the gas peddle and kept the Jeep at a rock-steady 55mph. I watched the gauge bounce back and forth from "3 miles to empty" to "0 miles to empty".

And this is how it played out:

"Don't stop."

"But there are two effing FedEx trucks in the right lane that are going to turn and the light is still red!!"

"Just keep going, the light is about to turn green."

"And then what?!?!!"

"Ride the shoulder, just don't stop."

"What?!?! OMG!!!"

"Do it!"

"OK!" (and I proceed to ride the shoulder--but the FedEx truck is trying to make its legal right hand turn). "Shit--he's trying to turn!"

"Go around him!"

"OK! (crashing up over the curb) You told me to keep going--you're not allowed to get mad at me!!!!!!"

As I coasted into the parking lot of the gas station I stopped the Jeep, peeled my white-knuckled hands from the steering wheel, turned to Rich and said, "Never ever again will we let the tank dip below a quarter tank! Are we on CRACK!?!?!?!"

I stepped out into the dry Vegas(well, just over the border into Nevada) night air and snapped this photo, as a reminder of how "terrible" that moment could have been!