Austin to Big Bend

Our drive to Big Bend was a long 7.5 hours, through the beautiful scenery, exotic game ranches and anti-Obama yard signs of Central and West Texas. It was mostly uneventful and enjoyable, until the fuel light started flashing and beeping at us. It seemed we had overestimated both what our highway gas mileage would be and how close the next gas station was. For a while it was looking pretty dire, but we managed to coast into Fort Stockton and made it to a gas station in time. I maintain that we were running on fumes, but Alisha claims (based on her “research” and checking the “internet” and the “owner’s manual”) that we still had a whole gallon of gas left. In any case, we’ll be more careful in the future. (That’s actually the only thing I really dislike about my Prius: the fuel gauge is wacky as hell. I can go 100+ miles before it shows any drop in gas level and then it drops quickly and erratically after that. It’s pretty unreliable, so I never know when to trust it, which makes long drives a challenge.)

We think this would make a great ad photo for the Prius.

Once we gassed up, we found a (the only?) grocery store (Lowe’s) in Fort Stockton and went in to get supplies. This was a mistake. Yes, they had just about everything we needed (although buying the Jumex brand “Peach Nector” was another mistake) and yes, the prices were reasonable, cheap even. The real problem was that the whole store smelled like shit. Literally, like shit. It smelled as if someone (perhaps a terminally-ill employee) had taken a massive, rank dump in the AC unit, which then circulated the stench throughout the entire store. Well, not the entire store, the bathrooms actually smelled decent.