Almost out of gas

Reliance on GPS without checking an old fashion paper map could be disastrous and this is not something new. Today, as we were driving from Provence to Haute-Savoie, I made one bad call that could have stranded us on the side of the road, hitch-hiking or perhaps just walking for a long time… By not carefully studying the map - thinking I knew the region like my back pocket - I entered our final destination into the GPS and off we went. Instead of taking the freeway (a misnomer in France, as it’s almost always a toll road) it routed us through the shortest itinerary, but obviously the one that took the longest. Not only that, since there was a major bike race blocking the regular highway, we were detoured on a windy, steep and never-ending narrow mountain road between Ugine and Megève. I was already low on gas, and that little extra put me on the brink of running dry. The digital indicator showed a blinking “last bar” for miles on end, forcing me to apply the utmost lightness on the gas pedal and scared me that my passenger would soon find out. In a tiny resort town called Flumet we saw a salutary gas pump, but it would take any of my credit cards as they only work with a smart “chips” embedded into them. Finally, thinking we were on our very “last drop” we reached the next gas station in Megève, asked a lady who was pumping gas if she could let us use her bank card for some of our cash, but didn’t even had to do that; as there was an attendant on the spot; after filling up, I realized that we still had almost one gallon left in the tank!