How Much Will Energy Prices Effect you and the Parks?

Seems that this becomes a yearly question, but this year it is now at a drastic stage. I thought I was going to send a jar of Vaseline to each oil company after my 2003 visit to Bonfante and Santa Cruz after paying $2.33 a gallon. Well, that was nothing compared to the $2.43.9 I paid this trip and that is for regular, not premium. 12 almost 13 gallons was a $31 bite. Now I am not affected like families, I can do this, but for parks to survive, they need families to visit their parks.

The price is going up, there does not seem to be a light at the end of any tunnel for the time being. How will this effect your trips? How much will this have an effect on the parks this year?

Ed

I know, i had to cancel my trip to virginia, because it would have nearly costed me a 100 bucks in just gas, and i have a cavalier. Plus hotel + ticket to bgw+ food, it would be way over 200 bucks.

Thank you those who voted for "W" <sarcasm>. Gag.

I won't let the gas prices affect my visits to parks. I remember in 2003 watching gas prices rise the further I drove away from Nashville and the closer I got to CP. They increased about 50 cents over that 8 hour trip! Now those gas prices I saw in northern Ohio are the norm around here in 2005. I've decided I won't let gas prices spoil my fun on park trips.

Is it worth it to dig for oil in one of the worlds last nature reserves?
Was the current surge in gas price appreciated by somebody as a tool to open Alaska for oil companies?
The pipeline between Alaska and the contiguous states was already being built.
*** Edited 3/20/2005 9:40:01 AM UTC by superman***

You don't realise how lucky you are. In most of Europe, fuel tends to be more than a euro a litre, which with the state of the dollar right now, means somewhere between $6 and $7 per gallon.

Oil prices are probably not going to go down a great deal in the future, as supplies are running out. More efficient vehicles, such as hybrids et al, are the future; cars that don't do at least 50 miles to the gallon *should* be too expensive to run.

In a couple of months I'll be more concerned with the price of bio-diesel. It's still pricey, but I'd rather pay the higher prices for it than regular gasoline.

I'm still paying less for gas than I am for milk, but it's getting closer.

If the price of gas is getting you down: combine trips, walk when you can, check your tires, get a tune-up, and knock 5MPH off your highway cruising speed.

If it gets really bad, make sure your next car is as fuel efficient as possible.

Getting a fuel efficient car should be something you do anyway. Fuel inefficient vehicles are wasteful.

Yea I have to say even though gas is expensive thank god were not in Europe and as far as drilling in Alaska, look at it this way. The amount of land that will be drilled will be about the size of one sheet of paper on a tenis court. It has been scientifially proven that the drilling doesn't affect animal migration, and the amount of oil we will be drilling will greatly decrease our need of importing oil from other countries.

First of all, if you cancel your trips because of the increased price of gas, you weren't planning ahead. Gas prices always go up right before summer--it's not like people weren't expecting it.

It doesn't matter if they drill for oil in Alaska or not--it's not going to have an effect on gas prices for at least 10 years. As an editorial explained eliquently, representatives were misleading their constituents in order to gain support for the bill, because the truth is that we'll be lucky if we see a single penny reduction as a result of this new source of oil before 2015. It takes a long time to search for locations, build the plants, dig, construct pipelines, and do everything else that is required to get oil going to where it needs to be. For all we know, consumers could be driving cars on H20 by time this new source of energy is available.

*** Edited 3/21/2005 4:25:33 AM UTC by PhantomTails***

I'd like to see someone give a real world example of how gasoline prices forced them to not take or cancel a park trip.

I can't find a personal example where the gas price makes up enough of the total trip cost to be a factor.

I even try imagining gas prices as half of what they currently are and after all the math is done, the difference in the total cost of the trip in nominal.

I think there's just something that feels obscene about the current fuel prices and it's a knee-jerk reaction to say it affects your plans.

This isn't a challenge or defiance. I'm honestly curious as to what situation one's trip is in that gasoline prices make the difference in taking the trip or not.

Well, it wouldn't effect day trips at all, but if things went sky high, I might have to look at multi-day trips. But, after I ran some numbers, there isn't a significant difference between say paying $2.00 and $2.25 a gallon in my car. It's about a $3 difference, which isn't a budget killer, plus I usually have someone else to pitch in for gas. Prices right now are where they were during last summer in the Baltimore area (around $2), so prepare for even higher prices than last summer. I got gas at the truck stop at 301 and 95, just a few miles north of PKD for $1.99 on Saturday, and I thought that was a pretty good bargain. The year Volcano the Blast Coaster opened, at the same truck stop area, I got gas for about $.99 a gallon. Those were the good days. I managed to snag gas last week for $1.94 near my house. It went up significantly next day.

Considering gas is more expensive in just about every other country in the world we should consider ourselves lucky! The high gas prices won't deter me from travelling.

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Michael Darling said:
Getting a fuel efficient car should be something you do anyway. Fuel inefficient vehicles are wasteful.

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Come live in Southern West Virginia where an SUV that sits up high is a necessary thing just to get into your drivway and I'd bet you'd feel different.;)

I went from a Gas Friendly Metro (Loved it) to a Nissan Xterra for just that reason last year.

But Tekno, that isn't really a problem anymore. Or at least not for much longer.

I drive a late 90's Jeep Cherokee and I adore it. It's great for toting my wife, two dogs and myself up into the mountains for weekend hikes and camping. But I am getting sick of the poor gas mileage on longer commutes. That's why I'm purchasing a brand new Jeep Liberty with a diesel engine. It'll get close to 30 mpg and has more low end torque than most SUV's. Plus you can run them on bio-diesel. It's about time that SUV's started getting the newer diesel engines. It makes sense to me.

Ford just released the first hybrid SUV to hit the market. It's the Escape model and supposedly can get near 40 mpg in CITY driving. Although it is an SUV in body only. It won't have the power to get you through deep snow banks and isn't really made for any type of serious off-roading. But it's only the first of several hybrid SUV's that will be available in the next few years.

So, there are choices out there and they won't even affect most peoples' driving styles. *** Edited 3/21/2005 8:46:34 AM UTC by Incidentalist***

True, but again, I live in the middle of no where land, so finiding Diesel would mean I have to drive an hour (probably over to Virginia), and thus defeats the purpose since I only have a 5 minute commute to work from home.:)

If I lived in the city, I'd drive something more gas efficiant, and I'd probably have a standard along with that (personal prefrence).

But traipsing thru the mountains of West Virginia (and I live on one that can be a Diva to get up in the winter) means I need something that not only looks like an SUV, but hauls like one as well. I'm friends with a couple that have an Escape. They can barely get out our drive way in the summer.(trust me, the drive is bad, but once you get to our home,it's worth it;)) That, and I have a limited Income, so my used Xterra was about the only option I had at this point.

Not that I don't agree, I'm just saying that unfortunately, there isn't always another option due to circumstances beyond my immediate control.

That's understandable. Everybody has their unique situation that limits what is and is not an option for them.

I find it surprising that locating diesel would be such a problem. Basically every gas station within 20 miles of me has multiple diesel pumps. I realize that it's more prevalent along the front range than in other areas of the country that I've lived in. But I've never lived somewhere that diesel wasn't available. I figured it would be more prevalent in rural areas, since a lot of farm machinery runs on diesel.

I agree that the Escape isn't worth jack off-road. That's one reason why I'm not even bothering with the hybrid Escape. It's going to be even worse than the original.

I may be rural, but there aren't any farms here, actually ;). I shouldn't say there isn't any diesel here, the problem is it is farm use only diesel, not for cars (it is weird, I know, but it isn't taxed and has some differences in it, so it can't go in cars as it is against the law).

But in the county I live in, the same company supplies all of the gas for every gas station. They don't deal in diesel for some stupid reason. That, and I don't like to buy gas from them anyhow, I've never cared for the family that owns the business, nor their children.

Ah well, that's what you get when you live here. Must move away again soon!

I never let gas prices affect any trip. I guess it's sort of like cigarettes......no matter how much they jack up the prices you are going to buy them anyway.

My brother, however, just bought a new Jetta and is laughing at the rest of us. lol.

Luckily I plan on flying more this year. ;-)

-Tina

*** Edited 3/21/2005 10:50:07 AM UTC by coasterqueenTRN***

Last year...

4,385 mile trip

Estimated MPG: 25

Estimated Gallons of gas: 175.4

Estimated cost Last year@ 1.65/gal: $295.92

Projected cost this year @ 2.50/gal: $438.50

Difference: $145.58

Bottom line: That was for a 14 day trip. To do that trip again, I would simply cut it short by one day, thus saving about that much in lodging -OR- just plan ahead now to save $145 -OR- simply accept the fact that it will cost that much more and pay it. In other words... it really won't change the situation that much.

As for ANWR and drilling? Like someone said... a sheet of paper on a tennis court. Bad news is... with all of the regulations passed over the past few decades to appease the whining (screaming?) environmentalist-wacko types, we can drill all of the oil we want, but since we have not built any new refineries since God only knows when, it won't do much good.