The longest day of the year

Everyone thinks it's the summer solstice. But it is really the day we tried to help out Penny. Kiley needed to get from a birthday party at Seaside to her youth temple trip a couple of weeks ago. Gretchen and I woke up around 4:30 a.m. to go get Kiley from Seaside (about 4 1/2 hours from Redmond) and take her to Portland. I was very excited because it would be the first time I had seen the beach since before my mission. Turns out, we got there just in time to pick up Kiley at the beach house and whisk her away to the temple. All that separated us from the beach was one measly dune. A DUNE!!!! Gretchen drove the entire way to Seaside and then from Seaside to Portland. She wanted to get Kiley there on time, she said. Thus, I was bestowed the honor of driving home from Portland because time was not relevant. It is not fun driving all day to do nothing, but Gretchen and my spirits were still high due to the fact we would still get home on time to do something fun. I was enjoying the scenery of the Cascades as the low fuel light came on. It was the first time that I had noticed the gas situation. I thought to myself, "No problem, there will be some gas up ahead." We had just passed through a small town called Detroit. Surely there was gas before we were to go over the mountain pass and into Sisters.
Not.
I ran out of gas halfway between Detroit and Sisters. I was barely getting a signal on my cell phone and was trying to call Penny to come bail us out. At that point we were only about 45 minutes away from home. Either my calls would not go through or the person who answered the phone wouldn't be able to hear me due to the low signal. I don't think the digital network could handle a conversation. Finally a good Samaritan in a red Ford Colt stopped. A Drunk Samaritan. The girl who was driving was very nice, but the passenger had alcohol on his breath and was ENTIRELY CRAZY!!! There was another passenger and a lot of stuff in the back seat. The crazy dude was rambling on about how he was going to get a pack of cigarettes and stay with the girls while I was taken to get some gas. He said he just couldn't leave us there. After going on with me for about 5 minutes, I told him I would try AAA as Gretchen gave me a look like, "Make him leave, please." Pretty creepy guy. So I pretended that I got through to AAA and that a tow truck would come. They left. To make a long story short, we were lucky to have left Gretchen's cell phone with Penny, because the Nextel radio was the only thing that would allow a conversation since it isn't on the digital network. Penny came and on fumes we made it to Sisters and filled up. Luckily Penny has a DVD player in the van. It made the wait not so bad. Thus ended my first and hopefully last experience of running out of gas.