More belated summer travels for you…..

In July my sisters, mom and I drove to Washington so we could visit my aunts.  I have four wonderful aunts who were a big part of my growing up years that we never get to see anymore because even my parents are no longer in Olympia.  It was so much fun!

We set off bright and early one Saturday morning We set off rather late in the morning much to our Trip Nazi’s chagrin.  Allison is our Trip Nazi.  She likes to leave early, make good time and she likes to stay busy.  My mother, who is the Heat Nazi and not the Trip Nazi is more…relaxed in her approach to traveling.  Sarin and I fall somewhere in between.  The mix of approaches does not always make for happy travelers, but we survived none the less and even managed to have a good time.

Part of Alli’s trip nazi-ness is that she likes to stop for gas when her tank is half full.  Thus necessitating more stops than most travelers are used to (or think necessary).  This would have been fine if the gas stations had cooperated with her.  But they didn’t.  In Oregon we talked for 10 minutes before we turned off the freeway about how annoying it is that we can’t fill our own gas tanks in Oregon.  We then tried to convince her that she didn’t NEED to get gas yet and could wait until we were out of Oregon.  Apparently we all have some blonde in us, well, three of us do anyway, and none of us caught her before she pulled into the gas station, got out to pump her own gas out of habit and was accosted by the Oregon gas station employee.  “Can I help you, Miss?” (ie. “Don’t you dare pump  your own gas here or we’ll have you arrested!”) It’s rare that I laugh so hard I cry, but if it happens, it happens with my sisters and mom.  This was one of those times. She meekly got back in the car after telling him what gas she wanted.  When it came time for her to give her credit card, he really did want to arrest her because the one she gave him didn’t even work.  She was in deep mortification by then, but we were absolutely no assistance as we were helplessly laughing ourselves sick.
We pulled away from the gas station grateful we live in states where we can pump our own gas.  But Alli’s gas troubles were far from over.  The very next time we needed gas, well, the very next time she thought she needed gas, we pulled into a station, she whipped out her card and the machine would not respond.  She pulled ahead to the next one and it didn’t work either.  She tried a different card, she tried staring at it for a while silently pleading for it to work while her family died laughing in the car.