Fuel - It's Happening Again

We went to $3.80 at most stations yesterday.

OUCH - $4.29 diesel in Rancho Mirage, CA.

3.77 at the TA off I57 in Mt Vernon, IL.

Fuel prices here have been $3.77 for the last few days. Nice to see the same price for fuel for more than two days.

My little Ranger got 27.5 mpg last week. Wow, couldn't believe it. At that rate, pay back on the truck will be less than one year including insurance.

It is going to take a little getting used to people riding my butt and aiming for me. It seems people will pull out in front of you a lot quicker in a little pick up than a big one.
The other day a guy kept flashing his headlights at me and waving for me to pull over so he could pass. He was getting very impatient with me. I finally let him come around. As he passed me he yelled at me telling me that that I need to stay out of the way of his MOPED.

We are already over $5.00/US gallon in Canada and I go back to those prices in May.Thats when I park the truck and drive the Honda.
The cure for high US gas prices is travel in Canada for a month this summer and when you return home fuel prices will seem like a bargain.

I am now beginning to wonder how many are going to cancel going to the rally due to the high fuel prices. I know, if you can afford the fuel you should sell the RV. But how is this going to hurt the RV industry? I know it will cost me about $1500 in fuel to travel from Texas to Indiana for the rally. I love the rally but that is a steep price to pay. C'MON MAN, let's get real about the cost of fuel. Let's just watch the profit statements of the oil companies and we will see how badly we are being taken advantage of. END OF RANT.....

Since I saw the "return" of this thread...here is the latest $4.25 at the Chevron yesterday (Saturday)

Yeah, our summer plans started out with a trip to the east coast from Illinois. Now, we may visit a couple of Illinois state parks and call it even. We were looking seriously at snowbirding in TX starting next winter. Now, getting there could cost us as much as the stay itself. I saw $4.29 up in Kent Washington last week for diesel and figure that will be in the midwest by late March or April. The fuel prices of 2008 could quickly look like a bargain.

We bought our coach and Augusta based on it being a extended stay coach. Larger water/propane/space and so on. We knew that fuel was going to get expensive. When you don't drill in large oil reserves or build refineries and you have more people every day fuel is going to go up. If the economy truly recovers it will be even higher. Most likely it will stabilize around $5 when the economy is good enough to lower un-employment down to the 5% range. Construction, farming, and freight are the big users. All of those things except farming are reduced from 2008 levels. Farming uses less per acre due to chemical fallow and no till plus more fuel effieicnt tractors. We are glad the new truck gets so much better mileage but still we are going to travel slower and stay longer to offset the fuel cost hit.

In San Angelo, TX we had 3.69 and gas at 3.42 yesterday.

We were at $4 in West Central Illinois Thursday. We now make sure our out of town trips include all shopping, doctors, etc. No one item trips now and we include a gas stop on the Missouri side of the Mississippi River. I read an email not long ago about our oil storage is full and tankers have been waiting off shore to drop off oil but no place ro put it. I guess that is the best story I have heard lately but it did come from Texas. I have no idea if that is true but I would imagine some truth to it. I am sure our travels are going to be limited to very close places. Spending $350 a month camping at our city lake sounds better all the time but just not as much fun. I also heard that in 10 yrs...at the rate we are going...the USA will no longer have financial power. China, Russia, Brazil, Middle East areas have the wealth to control the markets. We are seeing that now. This summer may be going to Plan B which is a forced diet because of the food prices to come and roasting hotdogs around the local campfire.. We are making one of those one day trips so anxious to see what the gas prices are in town today...Hoping Missouri is still below $4.

3.34 a gallon here in North Texas! Life is good....LOL
They will get the price up to around $5 and then we will be pleased and satisfied when it settles back to around $3.75 (NOT!)
I say drill drill drill and quit buying from the mid East, keep our money in our economy!!! Rant Over.

FYI - Refinery construction is currently underway in Port Arthur, Texas which will be the home of the world's largest refinery when completed. You cannot find an empty RV spot in Port Arthur due to all of the refinery contractors taking up all the available ones. Most refineries have full storage tanks, pipelines and ships waiting to unload with nowhere to put it. Oil shortage? Ha Ha
Not trying to be political just realistic.

Well just cancelled our RV trip to Glacier.I have a limit on price and cost on R V.3.75 is it. Stopped smoking at 2.00 pack. We are going but will use car getting 26 mpg. Have some good motels very willing to negotiate on prices.. Have some short trips still planned. Two of the parks we had reservations for offered to lower price but extra days of travel don't off set savings.

Not a record yet but with these barrel prices it might not be too long.

http://www.oil-price.net/

Note: I am not making a political, religious or economic statement--Just sharing info.

Diesel prices at the pump are around $3.80 in Louisiana right now. It's kind of strange that fuel prices are this high here since plenty of oil is sitting right off the coast and refineries are all over this great state. Oh yeah, I forgot, our President (???) will not release any more drilling blocks in the Gulf, even though a Federal Judge in New Orleans overturned his ban on drilling in the Gulf. But 2 days ago, our President (???) was in Brazil trying to partner with them to drill for oil. I see now, put offshore workers in the U.S.A out of work and send even more jobs overseas and raise prices for Americans. Here lately, Jimmy Carter has been looking like a friggin' genius.

Fear not, we will soon be buying oil from Brazil at a really good price!! I hope we wake up and start drilling in our own known reserves before we all go broke!

Yep these darn Presidents! Went thru this in 08 with Bush now OB. Ofcourse the problem not mentioned is Speculators....and hedge funds that bid up the price without any justification. We are swimming in oil... If ya think not look at the weekly petroleum reports.

Between Fredericksburg and Gainesville, TX on Hwy 281 prices ranged between $3.80 and $3.90. This for us calculates to about $120/day for our fuel expenses.

Rrloren said:

Fear not, we will soon be buying oil from Brazil at a really good price!! I hope we wake up and start drilling in our own known reserves before we all go broke!

Click to expand...

I wonder how much 2 billion dollars would go towards subsudizing the cost at the pumps

tmcran said:

Yep these darn Presidents! Went thru this in 08 with Bush now OB. Ofcourse the problem not mentioned is Speculators....and hedge funds that bid up the price without any justification. We are swimming in oil... If ya think not look at the weekly petroleum reports.

Click to expand...

Speculate:
Libya has problems - fuel jumps at the pumps within a day.

Tsumani in Japan and dramtic fuel drop for a barrel of oil, less then $100 - fuel at the pump stays the same