Running on empty (Tip of the hat to Jackson Browne)

One of Elizabeth's great fears is to run out of fuel while out in the middle of nowhere. She ran out of gas once as a teenager, right in front of the elementary school as she dropped her younger sister off. I ran out of gas in the Van That Can when we were towing a U-Haul trailer (darn wind resistance) going to pick up furniture from Uncle Dave and Aunt Wilma from their side hustle furniture store in Pennsylvania way back in 2009.

We were making a loop drive from Albuquerque, NM, to Mesa, AZ, to get some of our RV's windows defogged and then back to Albuquerque. 

Trying to be frugal, I wanted to purchase fuel at the lowest price possible. After leaving Albuquerque, I fueled up at the Petro in Milan, NM, went to Mesa AZ then started our return trip to Albuquerque. On the return trip, we decided to take the southern route as the northern route had construction on it.  To fuel up at the Petro Truck Stop in Demming NM meant that there would be around 580 miles between fuel ups. 

I calculated the miles of fuel left in the tank at what I thought was a conservative factor at 6.3MPG. I forgot about the fuel our bus burns when using the hydronic heating system and  that we would be climbing uphill all the way... OOPS.

When we pulled into the Petro Truck Stop in Demming NM, we were low on fuel. The low fuel light had been on for quite awhile, which got me some ear bending from the co-pilot seat.

The Fuel Gage, not the db meter, reading low

Well, how many of you have spent this much on a tank of fuel?

Top row US Dollars, bottom row gallons of Diesel Fuel dispensed.

Yes I pumped 131.5 gallons into our 150 gallon tank. so we had 18.5 gallons left or 116.55 miles worth of fuel left in the tank.  Plenty of margin left........ I have no idea of what that dead insect is doing on the inside of the pump.

On the price of fuel, we actually don't pay full price at some truck stops.  We have an EFS card issued by TSD Logistics and on this purchase we actually paid $276.24 for the 131.5 gallons, for a savings of $78.80 on that tank of fuel.