On Friday evening my daughter had a recital that my wife and I planned to attend which was about two and a half hours away. My daughter left early in the morning on the church bus and we planned to head over after my wife got off work early, have dinner and then attend. Well, things didn't quite work out the way we planned.
I had planned to burn E30 for this trip but topped off at the nearest station with E85, met my wife at the house at 5pm and we poured on the coals for Lakeland; during rush hour no less! During rush hour on those two lane roads folks were in quite a hurry to make tracks and the minimum speed was 85 and then 105 it seemed in those passing lanes that appeared every once in a while. Truck ran great as always but she burned through the E85 like an F-4 chasing a Mig! We arrived 4 minutes late and the needle sat at half.
Praise the Lord, I hope heaven sounds like the singing that those young people performed, glory to God it was awesome! Before I knew it it was over and time to go. My little one asked to ride back on the church bus and I figured while they ate a rest stop, we'd eat at a restaurant. We found a local joint called Ford's Garage and had some delicious sliders. I'm enjoying the company, the food, and the Model A Fords hanging from the ceiling and car parts everywhere when my wife informs me that the kids ate before the recital. Did we leave right away to pursue after them? Oh no, we had to stand in line for 30 minutes and buy $50 worth of t-shirts.
To minimize our delay in arriving to pick our daughter up from church, I took the navigation units suggestion of taking a major highway which added twenty-five miles but promised less traffic and ignoring my better instincts I pushed GO! This route took us into the Orlando area on a Friday night, stupid! but we powered through and finally got the nose pointed south at a high rate of speed.
But now I have a dilemma. The needle was now sitting at the 1/4 tank mark. That meant there was 11 gallons of fuel left. The distance remaining on the DIC was less than the distance to go! I slowed to 80 and then 76 until the two swapped sides. Meanwhile, my daughter arrived back at the church and went home with one of her friends. By the time we picked her up, the DIC gave me 90 miles of range but once on city streets it quickly fell into the 40s. We finally made it home and there the truck sat until today.
Pulled into the filling station today, the one that has E30 up on the north side of town. The idiot light came on on the way up. My oh my, what happened to the fuel prices? E85 went from $1.79 to $1.99 and E30 from $1.99 to $2.15!
Anyhow, stats for the recital run were 339 miles @ 13.18 mpg on E85 @ 80% for $.14 cents a mile.
I noticed while filling the tank with E30, that the little sticker said it could be as low as 25%. Well guess what? 30 minutes after filling up it was at 25% alcohol content. The MPGs were way up (15.9 mpg) but need to burn through the whole tank to see how she does.
The last six tanks of fuel have averaged fifteen cents a mile!
