Coaldale Inn

Years ago…before navigation systems and cell phones, we used to travel with a Rand McNally Road Atlas. My husband has a great sense of direction, but occasionally would ask me to confirm that we were on the right route.

We were driving from Las Vegas to Reno. As we were going through Tonopah we planned to stop for gas, but we didn't. The next town was Coaldale. There was no gas station, but we saw a trailer with a "sale" sign...so we stopped. We poked around and bought an ashtray from the Coaldale Inn. Cool!

About then we started wondering if we should be concerned about the gas tank. My husband planned to drive to Reno using a route that would take us through Lee Vining, California, which he thought would be a more scenic route...but probably a little longer. The alternative would have been to take 95 north; a little more direct, but less scenic. My husband said if we were driving our car he was sure we'd have plenty of gas to get us to Lee Vining, but since it was a rental he wasn't sure. I couldn't judge, from the atlas, where we might be able to find a gas station. I asked him to pull over so he could look at the atlas and decide what we should do.

He pulled into an open area off the road. While we were sitting there a pickup truck, towing a horse trailer, pulled over and stopped. My husband walked over to the driver and found out that he was on his way to Las Vegas, for a horse show, and stopped to exercise his horses. My husband asked him what route he had just traveled, and how far away was a gas station. The guy kind of laughed and said "I've run into guys like you before! Come with me." He walked over to the truck and pulled a gas can out of the back! He told my husband that he carried that gas just to help out people on the road, as his truck took diesel...and he wouldn't accept any payment for it! They poured the gas into our tank and we were on our way, enjoying the scenery and confident that we had plenty of gas to get to Lee Vining.