So as you know we were headed to my grandmothers funeral – a 14 hour drive ahead of us where there was nothing to really to stop and see, the drive was actually very boring – scenically speaking. We kept ourselves entertained by conversation and the new CD of course, and our daughter was occupied by her toys and the lovely tablet…but the drive suddenly became quite eventful.
We (well hubby) weren’t keeping track of our speed until of course the wonderful red and blue flashing lights shined through the rear view mirrors…you got it, we got pulled over by the police. Now for the record, we aren’t ones to ever get speeding tickets because we would consider ourselves responsible drivers so this is a very unusual occurrence. Now in our province, there is a rule that states ‘if you are caught excessively speeding’ they not only revoke your license, but they will also tow your vehicle away. You would be responsible for the cost of having your vehicle towed to the next nearest town/city and you would also be responsible for finding your way to the next town to pick up your vehicle. I always wonder though, if you were in a situation such as this, would the police officer really leave you in the middle of highway in hopes of finding your way to the nearest town? Well we were just 2 kms away from being considered to be excessively speeding. Imagine that!!! The evening had just set upon us and we had a 13 month old in the back and we were just 2 kms away from being left abandoned in the middle of the highway with no vehicle!! Yikes. We clearly had someone watching down on us and that someone was there to teach us a lesson, a lesson learned…along with a $200 fine! I would say that was more than fine, as we would rather have that than the impounded vehicle. The down side is we opted to drive rather than fly in order to keep within a budget – sadly the ticket put a damper on that total.
We had nobody to blame but ourselves. We got careless and got into such an in depth conversation that we did not realize how fast we were driving and as a result we got hit with a nice price for it…no excuses, but sometimes things like that happen I guess, they just tend to happen at the wrong time. This speeding ticket had got us pretty bummed out. The sun had set and it grew very dark out and our conversation got us sidetracked that we did not realize how low the gas tank was. If you remember, this was a very scenically boring drive – there weren’t any towns to be found for miles upon miles. When we finally did come across a town, the hubby took it upon himself to say that we will fill gas at the end of the town instead rather than exit off early and have to go through town. The analogy behind that was it would be easier to get off and back onto the highway…well sadly there wasn’t one on our way out, what is even worse, we didn’t think turning around would be as difficult as it actually ended up being as there was no exit once the town ended and by this time it was getting quite late, close to 1am!! We had no choice but to continue driving, in hopes that another town would soon approach. I had to stay positive here, this drive had proved otherwise, but there had to be something close by, at the very least an open gas station…the hubby on the other hand was losing faith and he grew very quiet. I had to assure him that we had enough gas to get us through to the next town..we had to have enough gas, right?! Well no town came for miles – literally speaking, and finally when we did our excitement quickly grew to disappointment as we discovered the town had NO open gas station, they were ALL CLOSED! That’s right, closed. We grew quite panicked..why in the world did we not fill gas at the last big town we just passed by??? What were we thinking? So we just crossed our fingers in hopes that we would come across a big enough town that had a gas station that was actually open, and we hoped that the town wasn’t too far away. Boy were we wrong, any town that we passed the gas stations were ALL CLOSED…I mean really, who would’ve thought EVERY gas station would be closed on a somewhat major route?! The gas gauge was basically below the ‘E’ and the drive was silent, you could hear a pin drop – I knew he was more worried than I was and at this point it was dark out and not a car in sight. Baby girl is sleeping in the back and hubby is at the front thinking we will be on the side of the road with a stalled car. The even scarier part was the area had very to no little cellular reception. My positive vibes started to dwindle but we had to remember that we have someone watching over us and we will make it, or did that someone already take care of us when it came to the speeding ticket..we can’t end up on the side of the highway stalled, can we?
We honestly had driven maybe 100 kms and now our luck was running out, it was imperative to find gas station, and one that was actually OPEN! We pulled over into a closed gas station thinking that perhaps we can use our credit card at the pump and it would work even if the station was closed, but you won’t believe it, that isn’t something that works. For the record, this is something they should really implement because you never know when you will be in a situation where gas in your tank is scarce and for people who like us who could possibly become stranded. The station had to be opened to be able to pay at the pump, now what sense does that make? We thought, that we wouldn’t make it any further and now it was time we call my dad and tell him that he will need to come and save us with a jerry can. After everything he was going through, we are now going to make him worry that we may potentially be stranded in the middle of a dead parking lot on a very quiet highway and no way to tell him exactly where we are. I kept the ‘glass half full’ mentality and told hubby that we had to keep going that we can’t just park the car and just wait to be saved, we couldn’t be far from the city and if we are stuck here or on the side of the road, what is the difference – thank goodness my intuition was right, because only about 20 minutes later, we came across a big town just outside of the main city that actually had an open gas station. Boy we were so relieved, and I finally saw a sigh of relief from my husband. He was truly worried and for a moment there I was losing all faith – I thought we were going to be stuck on the dark highway till the light of morning. After filling the tank, we only had 0.2 litres left, which meant that we would’ve been completely stranded 2 kms later (less than mile). Phew…we made it just in the nick of time and I mean that in the most literal sense, the car literally jerked as we pulled into the station. So what was seemingly the most boring drive became quiet eventful, it may have lacked scenic setting but it sure didn’t lack suspense. Not the best memory, but it was one that had many lessons learned and is one hell of a story for when my daughter is old enough to hear it!
So as you know we were headed to my grandmothers funeral – a 14 hour drive ahead of us where there was nothing to really to stop and see, the drive was actually very boring – scenically speaking. We kept ourselves entertained by conversation and the new CD of course, and our daughter was occupied by her toys and the lovely tablet…but the drive suddenly became quite eventful.