You know about the reserve tank, right?

Note: I'm way off on postings. I'll be trying to catch up this week/weekend.

Monday, May 24th: Went to go take care of bluebird boxes this morning. It was rather uneventful and I made it back to the office in under two hours. That gave me the rest of the day to spray exotics (hooray!). I had to finish up on road 5 and 19 today so I loaded up the four wheeler and took off to look for more Kogan grass. Finally got a picture of Sandhill Cranes as well as a Gopher Tourtise that was trying to cross the road.

After about 3 hours of spraying and searching for exotics, I reached the northern check station on the property. I shut off the four wheeler and took a short break to drink some water. The thought then occurred to me: I wonder how much gas I have in this thing...I haven't looked since Friday. The brilliant engineer who designed my Polaris four wheeler put all the gadgets he could think on it: Bright lights, an electronically displayed odometer, RPM gauge, and a (broken) speedometer. However, he failed to put the only thing one really needs to look at on the ATV...oh yes...that would be the fuel gauge. I unscrewed the cap only to see the bottom of the fuel tank, dry as a bone. My radio had died, and I didn't have cell signal, so I started it back up and floored it to get back to the office. About two miles away from the office, the four wheeler started to sputter and backfire. I gunned it even faster in hopes that I might get at least a little closer before it died. I made it to the service road that the office is located before the four wheeler finally died. I then proceeded to push it the few hundred yards down the road and to the back of the office where the fuel tank is located.

After recovering from the push in 90 degree weather, I hopped back on and took off to continue the futile war against exotic plants. While spraying, Cliff rode by on his ATV and he stopped to talk. I told him the whole story about running out of gas. He laughed, looked at the four wheeler and pointed next to my feet, saying "You know about the reserve tank, right? It's right there next to your foot. Just switch it to 'on' and you'll be good to go next time, no need to push". Thanks Cliff...

Only a few minutes after Cliff left, my wonderful ATV decided it would like to overheat and I was forced to let it cool and limp it back to finish off my day.