Ahhhh....

Back online. The days have been good. Except the parts that weren't. Like yesterday.

So I was driving from the Tri-Cities, WA down to a worksite in Roseburg, Oregon. Instead of driving my truck, since the company I will be working for is willing to rent me a truck, I chose to drive the Kia Soul, and just transfer my field gear to the rental when I got there. 

I haven't driven the Soul a lot lately, and that turned out to be a problem. A problem because my truck gets better mileage than the Soul, and additionally has an enormous 33 gallon fuel tank, whereas the Soul gets surprisingly poor mileage (for what is essentially a go-cart with a windshield), and has a surprisingly small fuel tank (11 gallons). 

There is a stretch of State Highway 14 in Washington that parallels the Columbia River through the Gorge that has no "services" for approximately 85 miles. When I turned onto this stretch of highway, the Soul had about 3/8 of a tank of gas. I thought this would easily get me to Biggs, Oregon where I would purchase more. But about 30 miles into this stretch, I'm noticing the fuel has already dropped to just below the 1/4 mark. 

Did I mention the wind was blowing really hard upstream (like it always does in the gorge)? Did I mention the Soul has the aerodynamics of a cube? Needless to say, I was "concerned." With 3/8 of a tank of fuel, my truck would still have about 250 miles til empty, but this is not the case in the Soul. So I did what I could: I slowed way down and just crept along, all the time getting more and more tense, unable to take my eyes off the fuel gauge. 

Near the end of this stretch, there is a long, steep uphill pitch near an old aluminum refinery. Just as I get to the base of this hill, my "low fuel" light comes on. I am, at this point, wound up tighter than a tick's hatband, but I make it up the hill and the few more miles to Biggs, where I fill up. According to the receipt, the tank took exactly 11 gallons, which coincidentally, as I previously mentioned is how much it is supposed to hold. 

So even though everthing turned out fine, the rest of the journey sucked, because I was still so on edge. Which brings us to today...