Doing things backward to end Earth Week

Well THAT was an odd experience! For the last six or so months, as gas prices have creeped slowly higher toward the $3.50 mark (for the record, it's now $3.67 on base here in Germany, with the horrid dollar-Euro rate, it's over $7 a gallon off base!), we've been very careful about conserving fuel. It seemed almost ironic that Thursday night, Pete and I had to spend almost two hours driving around to purposely WASTE fuel. It felt very odd....and not in a good way! As the gas gauge dropped, we could practically feel the money we were wasting, and how just plain ridiculous it was in this economic and environmental crunch to be doing what we were doing.

So why'd we do it, you ask? Well, Friday morning we had an appointment to ship the van. Regulations require that a vehicle's gas tank be holding less than 1/4 of a tank of fuel when it's shipped...and of course, like a doof, I'd spent most of my week at home. Thursday morning, I realized it was time to make those "last minute" trips to the bases 45 minutes away, because I wasn't going to get the opportunity to do it again, plus I had just over half a tank of gas! Wouldn't you know it, the van picked that day to get the best mileage it's ever gotten??? Driving for nearly an hour and a half, the needle barely moved. And yes, that was at Autobahn speeds, folks. OVER 100mph. We won't say just how much over, but it was over. Hey, I quote Raymond from Rain Man often--"I'm an excellent driver".

Oh well. Pete was able to get the gas gauge to drop. The van doesn't like him as much, I guess. We shipped it with EXACTLY 1/4 of a tank. Good thing, too, because it'll probably take us a while to find a gas station when we pick it up in Atlanta!