The Propane Story

For maybe 12 years or so Amerigas was my propane supplier coming out roughly twice a year. To my knowledge there was never a problem. The street people that drove and maintained the trucks were excellent. The administrative people were a nightmare. They would bill me say $2.39 a gallon for the two 500 gallon tanks that were here at the lodge. Then bill me $3.39 a gallon for the two 500 gallon and one thousand gallon tank on the north Last Hurrah side of the property. When I'd call the Green River office the lady told me it was because they had to drive farther and more wear and tear on the trucks. It's one mile from the south side of the property to the north side and the road is good. It was a constant battle with administration.

One day I'm in town at the Feed and Grain store getting critter food and I see a guy from Farrell Propane filling up the feed store tank. We talk, he says he can do much better than Amerigas. I switch, close out my account I think it was around 2018, maybe 2019. Tell them to come get their tanks. One of the 500 gallon tanks was a rental. A year after I cancelled them they sent me a bill for the 500 gallon tank they hadn't picked up yet. I called Green River and they cancelled the bill. The next year it happened again. I called Green River and they cancelled the bill, then the next year, then the next year. Each time they told me they had closed the account and cancelled the propane lease and somebody would come get it. They never did. Last year they sent me a bill again and I called the Green River office but got forwarded to the National office. I had to call four times, about once a month and each time they said they'd cancel the bill. Then I got a notice from a collection agency. They were going to put it on my credit report. I called Amerigas again and they said they really took care of it. I called the collection agency and they said it was taken care of.

Ferrell kept delivering and it went pretty well. Then on one of their trips on the way back they blew two tires on the truck. A year or so later one of the gages was wrong, I thought I was almost out of gas so I called Ferrell and they said they don't deliver on weekends. There's a guy in Blanding Diamond Propane. He's delivered a couple times before and he's great. I called and he said he'd see if he could move some things around. Not too long after that Ferrell calls and says there in Moab and on the way out. They drove from Colorado. I hurry and call Diamond but can't reach them so I leave voice mail and email sayig Ferrell is here don't come. Ferrell delivers and then heads back. What I didn't find out until later they got a flat or flats on the way back and spent the night in Moab.

I felt bad for Diamond but I can't make Ferrell drive three hours each way, two people. and not deliver the propane. When he did his first delivery Tami who worked here got a call saying her vehicle which was being worked on at Nations was ready. I ask Diamond if he can drop her off on the way back. He says yes. When Tami gets back she says she needed a few other parts and he went in the auto parts store to make sure she got the right stuff and he paid for it, then dropped her at Nations. In these days that's a hard story to believe. Not many people like that anymore. I've spent my whole life working to be surrounded by people you can count on. If Ferrell and I have a fallout I'll do business with Diamond.

Ferrell calls me a few days later and says they've had flats the last two times they've come out. They'd prefer not to do it anymore. If you're losing money I can't blame them. I email Diamond and tell them I'd like to fill everything up but before they come out let me see if I can get the county to come grade the road to make sure there are no issues. I'm back and forth with the county and they are trying but they are buried in work so I email Diamond to keep them updated. County comes and grades the road, I email Diamond to tell the road is graded and whenever they'd like to come out let me know and I'll be here. Then I realize they haven't responded to my last four or so emails. So I email and the response is roughly they had a truck hang two wheels on Hurrah and then I cancelled the last delivery so they don't want to do business with me. I'm stunned. I'm a good guy and care about the vendors. I stretched my relationship with the county to come grade the road to makre sure there were no issues with the truck getting here. They don't want to do business with me. They moved some things around to make the last deliery and I cancelled it. Don't want me as a customer. I've never to my knowledge had somebody that didn't want to do businesx with me but I got one now. I sent one more email and never got a response. Stll if he thinks I'm a loser that's his call and I still think they're great. Now it's been a couple months and I'm getting low on propane. I'm thinking I'm going to buy a propane truck and deliver to myself, fill everything up, then go fill up the propane truck again, park it here and I'll have a reserve of 2,500 gallons. Amerigas still has two tanks here. I call them to see if I can buy them and then I'll have an extra 500 gallons at the lodge and Last Hurrah. The lady comes back on the phone and says I haven't done a delivery in quite awhile. I tell her the account is closed and I just want to buy the tanks. She says the account was never closed and do I want an order. I say yes, hook up the two tanks that are yours and then fill all of mine up. They say they'll be out Tuesday or Wednesday. They never do. I'm almost out of propane. There are only three companies and none of them are coming out here. Then I hear about a company way up in Roosevelt thinking about expanding. I call them on Friday and they say they'll be here Monday.

On Monday I drive to town and wait at McDonalds where you turn off to come to me. I hardly slept the night before, the road had deterioraed since it was graded a couple months ago and the weather sucked. Here comes a Mountain West propane truck around the corner. I wave, hand him a walkie and tell him to put his tires where I put mine, it's going to be an hour and two turns are narrow you might have to take your mirrors off. As we're going up Hurrah it's not a blizzard but it's getting there. We get to the two corners I think are going to be an issue and he goes right around them barely slowing down. Everything goes well and I'm full at both places. In a propane truck it's about a five hour drive to me and the same back. He drove ten hours. I escorted him to the other side of Hurrah during the storm and I thanked him for ten hours of driving to get me propane. He said "Thank you for the experience."