Unidentified Fueling Object
There are no good places to run out
of gas but some are worse than others. In the middle of a desert, for example. Or
the middle of a desert frequented by extraterrestrials.
On a recent summer road trip my wife
and I took to the Southwest, we made a decision to turn off U.S. Highway 6 and onto
Nevada State Highway 375 toward the town of Rachel . Our original destination, Tonopah, fifty miles away,
could wait. We decided instead to investigate the eponymous "Extraterrestrial Highway " that passes within a milli-parsec of notorious Area
51, the landing site of choice in the United States for Unidentified Flying Objects. Curious about what
we'd find, we gave not so much as a glance at the gas gauge in our spiffy black
late-model Ford Ranger pickup as it reliably purred along on six happy cylinders.