How to take a long trip when changing times throw “curve balls”.
In 1972 the first gasoline shortage hit.
My father wanted to drive my older sister on a very long road trip around the eastern USA
to look at colleges.
He already owned a rubberized fabric “fuel bladder” that could hold 30 gallons of gasoline designed with fuel and vent lines to extend the ferry range of an airplane.
{ you probably think he was delivering baby hippos to Medellin, Colombia,
but he was going after “need right now” mining equipment parts only available in
the Phosphate mining area warehouses of Florida,
or “Iron Range” up north,
or warehouses with metals mining parts out West of Denver}
He bought a yellow Chevy Vega station wagon
(with new fangled aluminum-silicon bore walls that GM assured all would wear even more slowly than cast iron)
with a 16 gallon gas tank
and he installed the bladder in the back flat floor cargo area.
He called my grandfather in NY who was a Doctor
and who still routinely made house calls to sick kids,
and was required to be on 24 hour emergency call to handle industrial hot glass mass casualty accidents.
Grandfather therefore had no problems buying gasoline in a town where everyone knew him fondly as “Doc’ anyway.
Dad asked him to fill up the 20 gallon tank of his fishing boat,
the 26 gallon gas tank of my Uncle’s fishing boat,
and as many 5 gallon cans friendly neighbors had for lawn mowers.
Dad and my sister then took off on a more than 2400 mile trip
with knowledge there was one “fuel depot” they could raid,
in my Dad’s words:
“Like a thirsty Tiger Tank during the Bulge”
Funny thing was,
by just keeping an eye out for gas stations with reasonably short lines,
he ended up not having any problems buying gasoline,
and almost always had 40 gallons minimum.
Dad repeated this trip with me the next year.
Went equally well .... until I as driver gently rear ended a car in front of me with the Vega’s plastic bumper.
