Live and Learn

The saying—you “live and learn” has become one of my life’s mottos over the past 10.5 months! I mean technically speaking I suppose it is life’s motto in general; but it has seemed to apply all the more throughout this deployment! Let’s see—some of the things I’ve lived and learned lately include the following: think things through a tad bit more when storing a vehicle for an extended period of time, get a general power of attorney in addition to all the specific ones, act on your gut instincts and don’t always over analyze every situation, what to do and what not to do on an r&r, keep a positive attitude, time is weird but take advantage of it in every way you can, oh and the list goes on and on---but the reason for this post is about the latest lesson I’ve learned. When on a road trip, always fill up your gas tank!! Don’t hold out to try to find cheaper gas up ahead, because there just might not be gas up ahead. period. No, we didn’t run out of gas—but we did have to reroute ourselves adding extra miles and extra time—in turn costing more money than it would have cost to just fill up at $3.14 a gallon!! Despite Matthew’s philosophy of being “responsible but not a tight-wad” the old part of me still creeps out every now and then and after seeing gas for $2.98, $2.88, $2.91, etc for the past 100+ miles of our trip I really just couldn’t bring myself to fill up at the little gas station we stopped at where it was clearly over-priced. I handed Dad the credit card and told him to just put about $15 worth in the truck and we’d stop again as soon as we saw it cheaper (because after all Colorado prices are usually cheaper than what we have in Ohio so I was expecting the $2.88 I had seen only a while back once we got out of the small little town we were in)…so that’s what he did. And after taking a quick look around the neat little town (smaller than Lynchburg) we headed on down the road. We were taking an alternate route—much more exciting than I-70W and supposedly the quickest way to Colorado Springs. We were on US-287 and only 20 miles to our next turn which would put us on CO-94; we were on the home stretch and making good time for once J We traveled the distance and turned left, only to see a sign that read “NO SERVICE NEXT 70 MILES”! You’ve got to be kidding!?! We didn’t have enough gas to make it that far- because I had insisted on waiting it out to find cheaper gas. Well taking that route was out of the question at this point—our options: back track to Kit Carson (the little town we stopped in to get gas 20 miles back) and fill up or to continue on US-287 and eventually ending up back at I-70 which seemed to defeat the purpose of taking this “alternate route” differing from the route mom had map quested for us.  We decided to continue on US-287 and hope, really hope, that there was in fact gas up ahead!! We were on back country roads, but Dad as my witness, up until this point there had been gas stations about every 10-20 miles max! We did eventually find one up ahead—a very small little gas station about 35 miles up the road, we were closer than I wanted to be to an empty tank, and the price was like $3.09 or $3.11—but that’s beside the point, right?! We made it!! Phew!! And you better believe I told Dad to fill it up!!! We then headed on our way—on up to I-70, then down CO-24…trying to forget the fact that I’d made a stupid decision.  Keeping in mind that—YOU LIVE AND YOU LEARN—and that everything happens for a reason!!