so, what kind of gas mileage on that 24-yo car?

Really and truly, the mileage isn't quite as good as it once was.

I used to get about 42 miles per gallon on highway travel.

Here's the breakdown for the last three fill-ups.

On April 7th, it took 7.666 gallons to fill the tank, after having driven 239.3 miles in town, mostly to and from volunteer shifts at the Savannah Music Festival.

That meant the local mileage was 31.2 mpg.

For the record, that's been normal throughout my Saturn's life.

That fill-up got me all the way to Tallahassee, with gas to spare.

On Sunday, April 13th, before leaving there to return here, I did get gas.

I'd driven a total of 340.3 miles and it took 9.822 gallons to fill up the tank.

That meant I'd gotten 37.7 mpg for that trip south and west.

Hmmm... that was a bit lower than I'd anticipated.

Still, I thought I'd wait until today to fill the tank back up from the return trip.

This time, it took 8.998 gallons to replenish that used to drive 361.4 miles.

The calculated mileage was 40.1 mpg... much better!

Maybe it took a while for that new engine air filter I put in before the travel to settle in.

Maybe getting lost on the way back  made me drive at slower highway speeds for that return through Georgia.

How did I manage to get lost?

I got cocky.

My odometer read 240,240 at the station in Tallahassee, so I took that as a good omen.

Silly me.

My 12-year-old GPS quit working right after leaving that Suntop gas station.

I figured I could figure out how to retrace my steps backward, but I missed the first one, and that meant it took me seven hours to get home, for a drive that took only 5 1/2 hours to get to Penny's house.

(Sigh.)

Here's what happened.

I had avoided the I-95 to I-10 route on the way down, especially as this was the first long trip I've driven since getting A-fibrillation.

That meant cutting through Georgia, through Nahunta and Waycross and Valdosta and Quitman before getting onto 319-South to Tallahassee.

On the return, I missed that connection to 319-North, but I stayed on I-10 rather than turn around and go back, thinking I'd take the 441-N that Smitty had used.

However, I eventually thought I'd missed that route, so I'd gotten onto 90-E to 221-N to 41-N, before finally hitting a town I knew: Valdosta.

I knew where I was then, but I'd lost an hour on the road.

(Sigh.)

Lesson learned: bring the road atlas along... and maybe get a new Nuvi.