27 Days On One Tank Of Propane

I had the furnace on for a while last night, but the temperature wouldn’t go above 62.  I figured the tank was getting empty, but it was time to sleep so I went to bed without switching over to the full tank.  This morning I tried again, but she was just blowing cold air.  Sure enough, when I went outside the gauge showed red (empty).  I’m very happy that the tank lasted 20 more days than it would last winter 🙂

Thinking I was going to have an easy day yesterday.  I drove to Falls Church to do the commercial inspection around noon.  As always I had a printed copy of MapQuest and Gloria (GPS).  Plugged in the address for the business that I was looking for…no problem.  I get there and the house numbers don’t match what I have…not even close.  I call the woman that owns the business and she doesn’t speak enough English to tell me where she is located at nor how to get there.  I call the lender and there is no answer.  No one in the neighborhood knows what I’m talking about and I’m running out of time.  I had agreed to go to Leesburg to chase a car.  With traffic being crazy on top of everything else, I couldn’t stick around to try to find it.

It took me 30 minutes just to get out of Falls Church.  I can’t imagine having to drive through this mess every day.  I’m glad I don’t have to go out there too often and especially glad that I took Loudoun and Fairfax Counties off of my zip code list.

So off I went to Leesburg, leaving me just enough to get to Millers by 4:30.

I took the back roads back to Manassas and avoided any more traffic craziness.

After I had been on Gum Spring Rd for a few miles, I noticed that the Evil Twin was feeling a bit wobbly.  I turned down the stereo to see if I could hear anything unusual.  There was that all familiar “tire without air” sound.

I drove slowly to Millers.  When I got out of the car I could see that the left rear tire was almost flat, so I went straight to the service department and told Cecil my problem.  I was still hoping it was a slow leak.

About an hour later, Cecil informed me that the tire had to be replaced and that it was not safe to drive anywhere else.  On top of that, they wouldn’t be able to get me a tire until Thursday.

I ended up borrowing one of the loaners and drove to NTB to pick up a tire.  By 9 PM the new tire was mounted and I was good to go.  Now I have one more tire to go to make a new set.  I guess the driver’s side tire is next.

By the time everything had calmed down, it was too late to call my Mom.  Oh well, today is another day.  I just hope that I can beat the freezing rain that’s coming our way later on today.