We drove Andy to his rock carving class on Monday – when I turned off Skyline Blvd onto San Bruno Avenue Leilani looked at the Econo-Gas station and out of the blue asked if we needed gas. I looked and it was below empty. Way below empty. I filled Ainalaa’s tank and rewarded my little savior’s with an “It’s It” ice cream sandwich.
By the way – we are boycotting Arco where we used to get our gas, in case you did not know, the ARCO group is part of BP.
Andy adds: The reason the car was so low on gas is that we did a big camping weekend on a single tank. I filled it up and put air in the tires last Thursday, the day before we left. On Friday, we drove to Arroyo Seco, found the campsite, and parked the car. I noticed we used less than half a tank, though like all cars the first half seems to last longer than the second half. We found some hiking nearby (more on that in another post) both days, so we avoided driving any more.
On Sunday, the slow drive out on the steep dirt road seem to put it below half a tank, so I wondered if we’d make it home without refueling. Then there was a strong headwind around Salinas, so I drove the speed limit at 65 mph (105 km/h), and just kept that up all the way home. In the end, we made it home with gas to spare (after 310 miles/500km on one tank). But after driving around all day Monday (another 40 miles/65 km), it was below empty when Leilani asked about it.
In the end, our nice little car got 29 MPG (8.1 l/100km). More importantly, we had an uninterrupted weekend of camping, and even though we did drive far, it was quicker without stopping.
