Austin, Texas to Little Rock, Arkansas: 504 miles. A good day's drive. And now at a Comfort Inn (whose logo looks a lot like the AT&T logo, which Burnie Burns, at a talk at SXSW suggested looked like Darth Vader's Death Star.) See the picture on my plastic keycard:
We're five blocks from President Clinton's library, which is not known as his library, but as a Presidential Center. We may make a drive by in the morning. Driving in my dad's car which he recently bought used and all morning I was looking through the owner's manual trying to find out how big the gasoline tank is. That information is not available in the manual. Which bothers me a lot. I just want to know how many gallons it is. Now, on the one hand it doesn't matter the actual number, since we always know the relative amount of the fuel in the tank: it's half-way down; there's only a quarter of a tank left, we better stop. Still, I want to know the absoute number, and why isn't that number in the manual? So, at this point the only I'm going to be able to determine the number of gallons in the tank is to run that baby dry. And that's not too convenient. Running out of gas on the shoulder of our American interstate system. Still you don't know how big the tank is until you fill it up with fuel. Oh hell, who's going to do that?
And to add to our driving enjoyment I've spent the evening at Comfort Inn (free WiFi!) downloading Willie Nelson music from iTunes and burning it to a disc so we can listen to it tomorrow. Road trips are not anything like they used to be. Life is so modern.
Suggestion: when your indicator shows that you have half a tank - fill up and see how many gallons it takes, then multiply by 2.
Posted by: Shelley | March 16, 2006 at 11:29 AM
I just want to take this opportunity to thank you for giving me a web site to go to and heckle someone.
Thanks and love always
Matt
Posted by: Matt Balachandran | March 17, 2006 at 07:40 PM
shelley, but where exactly is halfway on the gas gauge. i don't think that gauge is accurate enough for me to figure out exactly when it is half way. but really, couldn't the writers of the manual have included somewhere how many gallons go in the tank? couldn't they?!
matt, heckle away.
Posted by: Erik Hansen | March 18, 2006 at 08:09 AM
Agreed, there is NO valid explanation for the lack of the gas tank size in the manual. Kurt has advised me that my approach is simplistic and marginally effective - that the empty indicator on the gauge is not truthful, that there are usually a few gallons left. However, if you can't find the halfway point on your gauge, I'm worried about road blindness or some other eye malfunction from driving for too long. :)
Oh - and Kurt has just added that you could probably find it by googling your car make and model name and "gas tank capacity". Me, I'd just call Click and Clack.
Posted by: Shelley | March 21, 2006 at 12:34 PM
shelley/kurt,
brilliant! yes, checked car specs online. i was guessing 18. turns out the gas tank capacity is 17.5. thanks.
Posted by: Erik Hansen | March 21, 2006 at 12:53 PM