Bonneville Salt Flats~~OUTTA GAS!!

After my education in Provo, I started out for my marathon 600 mile run to Lake Tahoe.  Upon leaving Provo, I checked my mileage and I was at 23 miles into my tank of gasoline.  I have been finding that on average, I can get around 150 miles per tank of gasoline on the motorcycle.  With a working capacity of about 4 gallons, that was giving me an average of around 38mpg.  Now as I was traveling northwest and heading out of Salt Lake City, I noticed that I was up to 75 miles into my tank.  Knowing that I had a pretty desolate stretch ahead of me, I thought about possibly stopping for gas, but as I was passing, what turned out to be the last gas station for 88 miles, I also noticed a sign that had 4 exits listed that were coming up, and each was within a 50 mile

Now given that I have been traveling for many a mile at this point, I was looking for some sort of sign that would tell me how long before the next gas station, or if there was no fuel for X amount of miles.  However, seeing no sign of the sort and also having FOUR exits  upcoming, I figured I could stop somewhere along the way.

As I am coming up to the first exit, it says NO SERVICES.  I did not think much of that as the stretch I was on was pretty empty and desolate.  However, by the time I get to the next exit, have put about 100 miles now onto my tank, and it says NO SERVICES, AGAIN, I am starting to get nervous.

Let me put this into perspective, I passed SIX exits, and each said NO SERVICES, only as I was getting to the exit…SIX!!!!

So somewhere about here:

Now you may notice that there is NOTHING near me, and yes, this is where the unhappy gurgle, and sputter of the engine began to occur.  About half a mile later, Angel turned over her last cylinder and I was left stranded on this road.

So I began walking the two miles needed to get to the closest gas station, when a trucker pulled over and offered me a lift.  Luckily he was heading in my general direction and offered me a lift.  It made what would have been a two hour ordeal into somehting that was a bit more bearable and managable.

~ by coachcrew on August 17, 2008.