Gas roulette, cold, wind and a little Native American culture

So the cold weather has decided to follow us cross country, eh? When we went to bed last night it was 29 in Ft. Leonard Wood by morning it was 15 degrees with a brisk wind blowing. The weather forecaster with glee mentioned that the 15 was the high for the day as temperatures were supposed to plummet through the day. There was a little added snow overnight but nothing that caused us any traffic issues.

Somewhere out there is the New Madrid fault

So we continued our trip west in pursuit of warm weather and basically never found it today. We did register one brief 27 degrees in western Oklahoma but with winds gusting to 40 mph it didn’t seem that warm.

Also on the news today was word that Texas suffered nine earthquakes yesterday.  We were discussing this in the car when Joan mentioned that Missouri has a famous fault that has caused earthquakes in the past. The former science teacher was struggling to name the fault line when I chimed in.

“It’s the New Madrid fault,” I said. Not missing a beat she shot back.

“See it paid for you to watch all those high school science videos I made you help me preview,” she said.

So I think she claimed credit that I knew the name of the fault line. Now as we arrive in Oklahoma City they are talking about a 4.0 earthquake in Guthrie, Oklahoma today.

This morning I played a little gas tank roulette. My thinking was that the closer we got to Oklahoma the lower the gas prices would be. And that theory held up as we drove west on I-44. Using the Tahoe’s information center I calculated the last possible place in the range of our car inside Missouri, realizing that I didn’t have quite enough gas to reach Oklahoma.

The Peoria Indian "Museum" in Miami, Oklahoma

I locked the computer on the number of remaining miles I had gave myself a little cushion and then determined from our “Next Exit” book (this is a manual that outlines the services at every off ramp on every Interstate in the U.S.) where our gas stop would be.

Wind (I have to believe that the name Oklahoma is an Indian word meaning "gale force winds") was playing a little with my anticipated mileage but about 10 miles from exit 46 – the place I determined we would stop and get gas – I still had 43 miles left in the tank. The low fuel light came on at the 50-mile mark and when the computer figured we had 40 miles left, a new message came up.

The mileage countdown disappeared and there was a graphic that indicated I needed gas now. Knowing I only had a few miles to go I ignored it, but then realized that the car was basically telling me “Hey stupid, stop and get gas,” only in a much nicer way.

Pulling into the gas station I decided to try and wash some of the salt off my driver’s side window so I could see my outside rear view mirror better. When I went to grab the squeegee I realized it was frozen into a solid block of ice.

With the car filled up (gas was $1.82 a gallon, a nickel higher than the previous stop I passed and a nickle higher than the next stop in Missouri so I guess I lost the game) we headed on into Oklahoma.

Just inside Oklahoma at Miami, OK, there is a Native American cultural stop that Joan has enjoyed in the past – Buffalo Run Casino. With a short travel day I indulged her in a little cultural exchange. I did participate a little and came away $30 to the good. Joan had not as good a day, but she was not admitting to how much she donated to Indian reparations.

Joan bundled up against the wind at her fav restaurant

We spent just two hours at Buffalo Run Casino which is run by the Peoria Indians, an Algonquian-speaking people, whose ancestors came from what is now Illinois, Michigan, Missouri and Ohio. So at least we kept the money in the family.

With gaming over we finished the 2 ½-hour run to Oklahoma City and checked into our favorite hotel here – The Governor’s Suites – and headed to The Texas Roadhouse restaurant which is one of Joan’s very favorite. She says it’s because of the food I’m convinced she loves the country music that plays there.

I had planned to wash the car if the temperatures were at all reasonable but with temperatures in the high teens when we arrived here in Oklahoma City and expected to go down much further I didn’t want to freeze the doors on the car closed. So tomorrow, weather permitting we’ll try again to wash the thick caked salt off the Tahoe.

At one time in my life I was part of a team, yes a team, who worked on deciding what kind of warning should be put on the plastic lid of a disposable coffee cup. At a large (and I do mean large) polystyrene cup manufacturing company I worked for in the early 80s this was a major issue.

When someone purchased hot coffee from a disposable cup it was not assumed that the purchaser would understand that the contents within could cause scalding burns. So a huddle of lawyers, the company’s owners and even myself were involved in determining a brief but effective message to warn consumers. Remember this message had to fit on a cup lid.

After many hours of due diligence and consultation this is what we came up with in 1981:

“CAUTION: Contents May Be Hot”

The capital letters were supposed to emphasize the message. It is a message that has survived to this very day on the lids of the cups from the manufacturer I once worked for.

Still waiting for a bath

This morning I was reminded of this when I opened a package of hotel supplied cotton swabs. I use cotton swabs to dry my ears before inserting my hearing aids. The warning on the package? “Do not insert cotton swabs into an ear.”  Don’t worry, I can’t sue you now if I somehow plunge the device too far into my brain and perform surgery.

And just to further tie up this topic the disposable cups in the hotel room in Ft. Leonard Wood contained a similar warning as to the one I helped craft so many years ago in Michigan. This message was a little more light-hearted.  “Caution, Hot, but you’re smart enough to know that.”  I like that message better than the one I was involved with. It accomplishes the same thing, but with a small dose of humor.

Mileage out: 9990

Time out: 8:20 a.m. (Central)

Mileage in: 10371

Time in: 4:16 p.m. (Central)