Second Day, First Fail....?

Yesterday (May 2nd) we decided to head to Peregian Beach on the sunshine coast to catch up with some friends for the day. First though, we had to deal with a cat who was pissing blood (if I sound calm about this, it's because it's not that unusual an occurence for the big guy unfortunately). So off to the vet - because OF COURSE he has to wait til Sunday to need an emergency appointment. Brief moment of panic as I remembered what it is we're supposed to be doing this month - quickly allayed by confirming that my vet has only 3 locations. Plus I don't think that they are a franchise - more an independent with a few locations. Which is a massive relief, because trying to source a new vet for a cat that is pissing blood on a Sunday when he already goes to the only specialist cat vets in Brisbane would have been..... let's say frustrating...

So then on to our next task, something which would have seemed so easy 3 days ago but suddenly takes on a new twist when you're trying to do it unchained. We plugged in the details of where we needed to go to meet up with our friends, and set along happily on our way (we weren't quite singing the happy wanderer or anything, but you get the picture). I then had one of those crashing iceberg thoughts arranging in my head moments - the computer in the car reckoned we had 230kms left on our fuel, and the sat nav reckoned we had a 260km round trip. Now I knew that once we got on the motorway and engaged cruise control our fuel efficiency would be markedly improved, and we'd probably make it, but could not shake that yukky feeling... what if? Obviously having a 4 month old strapped in the back changes things a bit on the old decision making front too.

So we're on the road, we don't have a massive amount of fuel, we have a baby in the back, and we have phones which are about to die of battery death. We know of ONE independent fuel place near us, although there has been some robust debate between us about whether it is still in operation (because it turned out that I was wrong, we won't be covering that debate in detail). We head there - shut. Did I mention it's Sunday on a public holiday weekend? We fire up the phones, praying to the gods of small-portable-fantastic-electronic-devices-with-low-battery-levels-but-which-are-essential-when-searching-the-web-on-the-move. Googling 'independent petrol station brisbane' is a hiding to nothing - I'm guessing that independent petrol stations can't afford to spend loads of SEO consultants. I suddenly remember that I have in iphone app called 'GasBag' which gives petrol station locations - a quick click on there though just reveals a sea of all too familiar logos. However, further inspection reveals a few logos which are just a petrol pump - no corporate branding, nothing, and clicking on them reveals some names which are NOT familiar, one of which even includes the word 'independent' in the title.

To cut a long story short - did I mention that it's Sunday on a public holiday weekend?

We're pulled over, debating what to do. Neither of us want to give up on a trip to the coast on a sunny bank holiday weekend to see some good friends. Neither of us want to be so totally pathetic that we can't even manage 2 days before caving in to the chains, especially when no-one has even read the blog yet (where is everyone?). There's a place en route which has THE most promising name - Freedom Fuels, so we head there. As we pull in my heart sinks a little bit - it looks like...well... a PROPER petrol station. We hold our breath and google it - it kind of meets our rules. It's independently owned, it's 100% Australian owned, it sells fuel, it seems touchy feely (as touchy feely as a petrol station can).... but it has a TON of locations. This definitely is in breach of my arbitrary no more than 5 rule.

D'you know what though? This is the best we can do, and I don't feel bad about it. We should have been more organised and got our fuel a different day, but we didn't. We picked the only option that we really had that day, and we still did it to the best of our unchained abilities. And what we DID learn is that there are a TON of options out there for independent fuel, which is one of the things I was convinced was going to trip us up pretty quickly with this whole adventure. Also, living the unchained life means accepting that some companies just don't open on the days we expect them to now that we have this 24/7 consumer culture, and doing a bit more planning ahead.

So onwards and upwards, and lessons learnt all round. I don't really think it's a fail (perhaps I'm reframing), but might lead to a rule review...