Routing

I had a meeting in Alexandria, VA yesterday and used my wife's Garmin GPS to help navigate me to the hotel. It's a nice little system and works well, but the routing it took me on was very strange. By far, the most obvious route from Roanoke to Alexandria is I-81 to I-66. However, the Garmin routed I-81 to I-64 and then through the country to I-95 and then up to Alexandria. Since that seemed a little bit more interesting, I went with it.

The route features very nice bucolic scenery but there was one big problem. I had a rental car (a crappy little Kia Sportage) and I was about out of gas near Charlottesville. No problem - I'll hit the point of interest button on the Garmin and it'll find me the nearest gas station. It was only a couple of miles up but when I got there, they were out of gas. Hmm. I'm right at empty and in the middle of the country. The next closest station was a little out of my way, but I think I can make it there, so I turn off the main route and head towards the station. I'm on fumes when I pull up to this place where I was fully expecting Gomer Pyle to walk out and notice that they hand scrawled "Out" signs on two of their three pumps. Luckily, they have some left in the third and I get $20 worth (5 gallons) which is enough to get me to civilization. I guess those little hurricanes that blew through really did limit the amount of gasoline available.