Before and After: Spot the Differences

Austin, TX
N 30°13'38.97", W 97°44'42.11"
http://maps.google.com/maps?q=30.22749,-97.74503

I got an early start out of El Paso this morning and made a very late entrance to Austin with a vanguard of housing complications, so I'll make this a quick account of the day's big adventure. Take a close look at those photos.

So, there I was, tearing along at 80 and just seven miles from my next scheduled fuel stop in Texas hill country. Hilly desert, basically. Heading up a hill, I felt power fading, so I turned the valve from PRI(mary) to RES(erve), right? Still no power. I pull over onto the shoulder and fidget for a while, and when I fail to succeed, I make another tech support call to Erik.

Come to find out, PRI stands for PRIME, and just dumps fuel into the carburetor, so I had left myself with no reserve and I had been crippling my gas mileage. I was out of gas; Erik called this the Motorcyclist's Surprise. Surprise!

I start to hoof it East, thumbing and smiling at passing cars as I trudge along in the coat some have said look like a stillsuit from Dune. I though there would be more sympathy for the overdressed guy carrying a helmet away from a motorcycle in the middle of nowhere. Maybe a half hour into the hike, a tractor trailer pulls over and I half-run to get in his cab. Meet Gil, out of Seattle and headed for Alabama.

Gil gets me to the truckstop about ten miles down the road, declines my offer of money, and wishes me luck. I buy a 2.5 gallon can and three bungies. As I'm paying for them, I make conversation with the gentleman behind me in line, laughing about running out of gas in the desert and it turned out he was heading in the direction of my bike.

Thank you Gil of Seattle and Ricky born and raised in Texas, you are princes among truckers and helped make my out-of-gas adventure a good story and not a grumpy one.

Oh, and the answer key for the before and after. In the second picture:
1. The helmet is on the ground.
2. The bike is farther from the road.
3. It's about an hour later.
4. The bike has a new friend, Jerry the Can, bungied into the passenger seat.
5. The bike has gas and can move again.

600 miles again today, I'm going to try for 400 and Lafayette, LA if I can make a reservation at a hostel there.

1000 miles left in the trip!