Family Road Trip, II

I logged an incredible 1,000 miles behind the wheel of my Suburban this last weekend. Why? Because my Grandmother no longer drives. And my Mother finds herself unable to make it up to the speed limit and I cannot bear to have her drive me that crazy. And my brother (who is 20!!) is afraid of driving large vehicles.


All of that was ok though, because I find it hard to trust other people driving while the munchkins are in the back of the vehicle.

The panhandle of Texas made me realize that I really didn't know what it was like to live in a small, country town. The towns were a good 30-45 minutes apart. There was literally nothing between towns. In my neck of the woods, you can't go five minutes in the car without running into a gas station. I even mentioned this on the drive up to the panhandle!!

On Monday though, we left our hotel and I noticed the trip odometer was at 690 miles. I completely neglected to look at the gas gauge. I was ready to get home! The munchkins were tired. I was speeding down the highway, getting close to the halfway mark between our starting point and the next town. It was almost 40 miles between towns! And.....the low gas light came on. (Naturally.) Normally, I wouldn't have worried, because I would have about 35 miles that I could go, more than enough to the next town. The Suburban was full of 6 people and luggage for all of them!!

Would we make it all the way to the next gas station?

Would we run out of gas and have some mass murderer come up to offer one of us a ride to get gas?? (My mother was with us. This is a realistic scenario.)

I slowed down to 55 miles per hour.

A trucker ended up behind us, following closely. Was the mass murderer in the truck?

We went up and down hills. We passed county road after county road intersecting with the highway, all without a gas station or business of any kind in sight.

I drove for what felt like hours.

We passed cows and horses.

Finally...

finally...

we saw the gas station! All without running out of gas or meeting the mass murders that must have been lurking around, waiting for the perfect opportunity to snatch up my mother.

We did make it home in one piece!