A Winter's Tale
It's the dead of Michigan winter, and I'm heading home via back roads. The fuel light has been on for some time, but I pass up a gas station with high prices because I know a cheaper station awaits about 15 miles down the road and my trip computer says 23 miles to empty. It begins to snow, hard. I press on.
Time passes. The miles-to-empty still says 23, but I've slowed down because of the snow so that's probably why. More time passes. The trip computer now reads 24. WTF??? I take a closer look and, to my horror, I see I've been reading the outside air temp! I hit the "Mode" button and punch up the miles-to-empty, which reads "0". I'm now just about half-way between gas stations. The snow grows worse, and I slow even more to conserve whatever fuel I still have.
An eternity passes, and I finally roll into the Dowling Marathon station, which today is a whole $.01/gal cheaper than the one I passed up a ways back. I fill up and the pump shuts off at 22.82 gallons. I give Ralf, my 4Runner, a big pat, tell him he's a good truck and head back into the storm for the rest of the trip home to Lansing.