This weekend the Fort Hays State University Tigers travel to the state of Missouri.  Let me stop right there.  It doesn’t matter what town the Tigers are headed to or who the opponent is, for the broadcast team of Gerard Wellbrock, Callie Kolacny, Cole Reif and myself…something strange will happen, usually involving gas stations.

Quick Side Note:  I was getting the picture for the front of the blog and noticed part of the Missouri slogan is “far from ordinary.”  No Kidding!

Warrensburg, Missouri – As we pull into town for a football game a couple of years ago, we decide to fill up with gas before the game.  Pull up to the gas station, run the card and start pumping gas to only have the pump stop after about $1.50 worth of gas.  After trying the whole process once more, a guy comes running out of the gas station telling us to stop and “don’t move.”  Uh-oh what did we do.  The gas station employee returns with a really long stick and runs it down a hole…yup out of gas.  The gas station attendant informs us that if we wait until Monday we can get gas.  Ummm…that’s OK, we’ll try another gas station.

Kirksville, Missouri – More than once has this trip provided fruitful in odd happenings.  Two years ago during football the gas station we pull up to appears to all be normal, until we try to pump gas and nothing happens.  Come to find out one of the pumps had just started leaking gas uncontrollably and as a result the whole gas station was shut down.  We filled at a place with an honest to God “Beer, Bait, and Ammo” sign hand painted outside.

Most recently on the way to Kirksville we stopped a few hours from town at Cameron, Missouri to fill with gas only to find out that only three of the ten pumps at the gas station actually work and the line wasn’t worth waiting for.  So we head across the street to find that only two of the credit card machine at the pumps work, luckily one was open and we were soon on our way.

Maryville, Missouri – Not all the stories have to do with gas stations.  Pulling into Maryville we knew that it was homecoming.  So we took a different route to the stadium, only to end up behind a couple of tractors pulling floats to the game.

Missouri has provided more road trip stories that I haven’t been involved with or just can’t quite remember off the top of my head.  Wish us luck this weekend.