I'm on a trip with my parents in Santa Cruz. Traffic is terrible! Highway 17 home will be a nightmare.

Also, we're low on gas. Can't buy any--at every station we try, the pumps don't work, though I can't see why.

Go out to the Point on a winding road up the rocky bluff, pleasantly warm. Caves in the rocks. Decompress a while.

Check the emergency gas cans in my car... empty. Gotta drive on fumes, then.

Head north on Highway 1 along the coast. At last, as the engine starts to stutter, I use gravity to roll down from the cape north into a rivermouth valley with a market and working gas stations.

Get fuel and stick to the coast road... a long way round, but Highway 17's blocked.

NEXT DAY

A fire in the Moss Landing Powerplant, which supplies Santa Cruz County, left the town dark; so gaspumps and stoplights failed. Traffic jammed on Highway 17, the only direct route over the mountains to the Bay Area.

My friend Val's friend Grant got trapped there. Low on gas, he wove through traffic, took back roads, and barely got out of the dark zone to a working gas station, running on empty...

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