Running on Empty
My very first car I purchased, while in high school, was a 1969 Ford Mustang Mach 1. Although the car was only 10 years old at the time, it showed its age and mileage, rusting out in several places and struggling with electrical wiring and its engine, which brought many stories I could share. However, the most challenging feature on the car was that the gas gauge needle didn't actually read correctly. A full tank of gas only registered about 3/4 of the way to F - which meant that when the needle on the gauge was reading E there should have been a whole quarter of a tank of gas left. The true empty spot was somewhere past that E but how to measure 1/4 below that was a guessing game.
I would routinely run on "empty" with a hope that I could probably drive another 50 to 60 miles or so. This usually made most of my passengers panic. I became pretty good at setting an odometer mileage to aim for which would allow me to fill the tank before running out of gas completely. The thing was, because I never really knew how much the tank actually held when I filled up I couldn't tell how close I was to being fully empty.
Until I finally, one day, I did misjudge the range and ran out of gas. It was a bit of a walk to a station to get a gas can filled, but then, when I filled the tank to the top, I was a little surprised to find out how often I was running very, very close to empty.
This past December, my wife and I sold off our two gasoline engine cars and became a one-car-fully-electric-vehicle household. These past months have been quite a learning process in how to keep our vehicle charged so that we don't end up running on empty. Granted, it would be a lot easier if we weren't trying to charge the vehicle from a standard 120V outlet in the garage at our rental. It's really slow to charge, like using a soaker hose on your garden. While it does work, it just takes a long, long time.
And unfortunately, the infrastructure around us here in south Minneapolis, is a bit limited as well. There are places to charge (for a price) but too often they're out of service or just a bit inconvenient for leaving the car for 30 minutes to an hour, to reach a charge level that will be useful for us. We have learned how find chargers near events we attend, and we are trying to learn how to plan routes for longer trips to make charging stops along the way.
Over the July 4th holiday, our best made plans for getting from Minneapolis to our beloved lake along the Gunflint Trail (320 miles distance to cover) didn't work out as planned. The fast-charger we hoped to use in Duluth - our halfway point with a dinner layover - was not working and the slower one we ended up using was charging very slowly, so after quite a long wait, we decided to just get going with hopes to find a fast charging stop along the way. Although there were a few marked on the map, none were working, and our battery level continued to drop to near zero with just one last option in Grand Marais possible before we'd be completely out of power and 35 miles away from our destination. For those of you who know Grand Marais, there is a bit of a climb coming into town, but then a long, long downhill stretch to get into the downtown area where we were looking to find the charging station. Let's just say we needed that downhill roll. While not on completely on "empty" at 4% of battery, we were getting lots of messages from the vehicle itself that it was time to find a charging station - like now.
Needless to say. We found the charging station, and after a bit of late-night challenges getting it to start up, we were able to put a fast charger (like using a fire hose on your garden) to work and got our battery charged enough to make that final climb up to the gunflint trail and to a long-awaited rest at the cabin after what was a nearly nine-hour adventure.
Our ride home was actually such a simple process of finding a fast-charger at a half way point during a picnic dinner that we feel much more hopeful about our next northbound trip in the middle of this month.
Getting fueled - staying fueled - running on empty. I certainly found myself thinking a lot about these experiences while trying to manage cash flow during July. I saw it coming, since we had chosen to be "closed" for over a week to give my family the space and time we needed to host a wedding. With no income (and very little savings) the shop hit empty on the fuel gauge. In fact, for the first time in several years, I needed to walk to the gas station to get a can of gas. And this past month felt much more like a soaker hose than a fire hose for refilling our bank account at the cafe.
It's never easy running a business that requires purchasing ingredients ahead of time and paying for labor ahead of your sales in order to produce the materials you hope will bring in enough revenue to pay for all the expenditures you've already put out. If all goes well, you might have a little on hand to buy the next set of ingredients and pay the next round of labor to have items produced for more people to purchase. Any break in the circle, any long large hill to climb in your EV, any miscalculation of where the needle is actually pointing to on the gauge and things begin to go awry.
I have needed to ask my staff for help. I have needed to re-set my expectations around what can get purchased or repaired and what can't. I have asked for "a little time to find a little extra fuel" from my vendors and landlord. After all these years, I wish I had more "infrastructure" built up around me to survive a month like last July. It's been disheartening. However, it's also been so amazingly loving and heartwarming to be cared for and supported and encouraged to keep on doing what we're doing.
We are not alone in facing the challenges of running on empty this summer. I get reports from our farmers of struggling with drought conditions. I've been watching trees choose to drop leaves as a response to the stress of heat and lack of moisture. Because they're running near empty, they make a tough choice to sacrifice leaves to store energy in their roots for the coming winter. It's a model I will have try to put to use here as well.
We've also been very diligent about watering our new front boulevard plantings. We know they need that extra fuel this year to establish their roots and settle into their new environment. The extra time and water are essential to them for survival. We'll hope that over the next couple years they'll become as comfortable with roller-coaster rains as our parking lot pollinator patch which this year is still blooming and abundant despite the heat and minimal rains. We're hoping our roots here at the cafe, after all these years, are deep enough to withstand the adjustments we're facing in a post pandemic-new dining environment.
This is the green path we're walking. I am so grateful for having all you as a community to share the journey with me. Your presence is our fuel.