Jump to content

Gas Price Shock

W7WT

By W7WT
in Northwest

Followers 2

Recommended Posts

W7WT

+W7WT

Posted
Posted (edited)

All ready to leave the day after labor day on a trip to my home state of Illinois. I have over 150 caches printed out. All caches loaded on my iQue, 76C, 76S and even on my Foretrex 101. I had hoped to pick up enough caches so as to get my 1100 at Mingo the oldest existing cache GC30. The Land Cruiser gets about 16 to 17 miles a gallon on the road. I was willing to pay $2.60 a gallon but $3+ is just too much for someone born during the depression. Will just put on hold for a few days to see what happens. Guess I had better drag out the little 80 Honda Scooter. Dick, W7WT

Edited by W7WT
Link to comment
CurmudgeonlyGal

+CurmudgeonlyGal

Posted
Posted (edited)
This nicely illustrates the point that owning an SUV can prevent people from getting where they want to go.  :P

 

With my Subaru Legacy, my gas costs per mile today are less than what SUV owners voluntarily paid a year ago.

Some of us are too busy overpopulating the world to drive small, economical cars.

 

 

I love my Suburban, dammit! (And just drove across the US in the darn thing... but, thankfully the MOST expensive gas place we hit (in WA, mind you) was $2.89.)

Edited by CurmudgeonlyGal
Link to comment
shunra

+shunra

Posted
Posted
This nicely illustrates the point that owning an SUV can prevent people from getting where they want to go.  :P

 

With my Subaru Legacy, my gas costs per mile today are less than what SUV owners voluntarily paid a year ago.

Some of us are too busy overpopulating the world to drive small, economical cars.

Yeah, that's another way of keeping the price per mile per person down :P

Link to comment
Bull Moose

+Bull Moose

Posted
Posted (edited)

I love my Xterra 17 mpg and all. I take public transportation to work, so all that gas that I would be burning going to work can be dedicated to driving to the trailhead to do some caching*.

 

In the end, I'll just pay what they charge for gas.

 

*Diving save to keep on topic. :P

Edited by Bull Moose
Link to comment
W7WT

+W7WT

Posted
  • Author
Posted
This nicely illustrates the point that owning an SUV can prevent people from getting where they want to go. :P

 

With my Subaru Legacy, my gas costs per mile today are less than what SUV owners voluntarily paid a year ago.

My wife has a 86 Honda Prelude. Gets great mileage but once you get use to setting up where you can see what is going on like either the Land Crusher or the Roadtrek van, I wouldn't enjoy driving it across country. I doubt if we could get all of our gear in it anyway. I have owned a 4WD every since I had my first 1970 Land Crusher. You have a good point I probably wouldn't have bought the 2000 vehicle if I had known what I know today. The Prelude is rather low slung meaning we would have to be careful getting off the paved roads Geocaching. My little Honda 80 scooter gets about 55 mpg. Maybe I will use it around here for Geocaching. Dick

Link to comment
Belleterre

+Belleterre

Posted
Posted

Dick, am I going to have to light a fire under you to get you on the road? :P Who says gas prices are going down? Who says you won't be too sick/injured to go next time you get the urge?

 

To loosely quote Mark Twain and maybe someone else:

 

It's better to regret the things you've done than the things you didn't do!

 

Hop in that RV and get going!

 

Okay, now that I'm done with my rant - I have to finish getting ready to hop on a plane to Fiji this afternoon. :P

Link to comment
Renegade Knight

+Renegade Knight

Posted
Posted (edited)

It's lunch. I think I'll top off the car and see if gas went up any.. It was 2.59 last night. What a good time for our Univesity to send my wife on Clinicals 50 miles away instead of in town (and guess where the people 50 miles away have to go... HERE! Grrr!).

 

2.67 at Lunch Today. Pocatello used to be the most expensive gas in the state. The past three years we have been the cheapest.

Edited by Renegade Knight
Link to comment
evergreenhiker!

+evergreenhiker!

Posted
Posted (edited)

yeah, my Cherokee mileage sucks! It's gotten worse. With the high gas prices, I really am considering going to a more economical car such as an Subaru. Any rate, it's in the teens at best. Lots of my friends and relatives drive Subaru's including my mother and girlfriend. They seem like a good compromise. You can still do logging roads if not too rough and the mileage is much better.

Edited by evergreenhiker!
Link to comment
Allanon

+Allanon

Posted
Posted
Dick, am I going to have to light a fire under you to get you on the road? :P Who says gas prices are going down? Who says you won't be too sick/injured to go next time you get the urge?

 

To loosely quote Mark Twain and maybe someone else:

 

It's better to regret the things you've done than the things you didn't do!

 

Hop in that RV and get going!

 

Okay, now that I'm done with my rant - I have to finish getting ready to hop on a plane to Fiji this afternoon. :P

dadgum...is it too late to apply for the position of 'luggage boy'? :P

Link to comment
W7WT

+W7WT

Posted
  • Author
Posted
yeah, my Cherokee mileage sucks!

My last airplane was an Cherokee 180,a Piper Archer. It burned 8 gallon an hour at an airspeed of about 100 knots. I have no idea of Av gas price but sure miss that plane. More fun than Geocaching but hard to do much Geocaching from it.

 

OH! You were talking about a Jeep Cherokee. Sorry, Dick, W7WT

Link to comment
the4Grays

+the4Grays

Posted
Posted

We mostly use a Toyota matrix which gets around 26 to 33 MPG but if we are going into the mountains we the the GMC Jimmy that gets a whopping 16 to 22.

But you know what even with gas prices the way they are it's still cheap entertainment compared to other things you can do and its fun for the whole family.

Dick you just go now, gas is only expected to go up to around $4.00 in a month or so. Besides just like Nike " Just do It"

Have fun.

Link to comment
W7WT

+W7WT

Posted
  • Author
Posted

Thanks Belleterre, 4 Grays, Bull Moose and the rest of you for encouraging me to go anyway. This is about a 5 to 6,000 mile trip. Just think with the money I would save I could make a down payment on a surveying level GPS. Then we would know approximately where GZ is at our GPS Contests. NAW, they would really feel bad when they are several feet away. We may go later or next spring. I spent hours searching out, printing and loading about 150 caches. Maybe I will just go through and log them all as finds. Dick, W7WT

Link to comment
Half-Canadian

+Half-Canadian

Posted
Posted

Dick,

I understand your point and your frustration at gas prices spiking just before your trip. I made plans months ago for a geocaching trip that starts on Tuesday -- flying to Toronto and then driving a rental van in a big loop around Lake Erie for two weeks.

 

I did some quick calculations today, and with the increased cost of gas over the past 6 weeks or so, my extra cost for the trip will be about $250.00. Is it worth it to me to cancel my plans for a fun trip I have been looking forward to for a long time for that amount of money? No... Vacations do cost money, and this one will just cost a little more than I had planned. I'll probably stay in Motel 6 instead of something a little nicer, pack a few lunches instead of eating in restaurants, and the $250 extra in gas should be offset by making these small changes in my other expenses.

 

I hope you'll reconsider your plans to cancel your trip -- it's something you've looked forward to, and you have the time, ability, and ambition to do the trip now. You can always economize a little more by riding your scooter once you get home from your great trip!

 

My .02 (Canadian) cents

 

H-C

 

BTW, gas has been well over $1.00 per litre here for several weeks, putting it close to $4.00 per US gallon. Life goes on.

Link to comment
Shop99er

+Shop99er

Posted
Posted
Who says you won't be too sick/injured to go next time you get the urge?

 

 

Okay, now that I'm done with my rant - I have to finish getting ready to hop on a plane to Fiji this afternoon. <_<

Mrs. Shop99er here.

 

I'm totally with Belleterre. Life is to short and you can't take it with you.

 

Mark has had two nearly fatal incidents (one falling off an aircraft carrier and breaking his back, the other was being hours away from a major heart attack). While I was sitting in Harbor View's ICU it dawned on me.... It could have all been over in the blink of an eye. From that first incident on we started living for the minute. That's also about the same time that Mark started wearing Aloha shirts on a daily basis. Every day should be an occasion.

 

I've left dirty dishes in the sink and turned off dinner in mid-cook to go with Mark to bag a cache. We've spent more than we had on trips and never regretted it for a second. We many not have a fortune in the bank but we are more than rich in experiences and memories. I don't want to be on my death bed thinking 'Dang! Why didn't I (fill in the blank)?".

 

Mark and I will be embarking on a nearly month long vacation tomorrow morning. We're taking Amtrak from here to Chicago, DC and Orlando. We'll play and cache a week in Orlando then take the train back up to New York for another week of fun and caching. Then we go from NY to Chicago, down through the center of the US and play a few days in LA before heading home. The train tickets alone factor out to WAYYYY more than $100 a day in gas. It's going to be worth it. Every dime of it.

 

Get out there Dick. You're burning daylight and those dollars are burning a hole in your pocket!

Link to comment
TotemLake

+TotemLake

Posted
Posted (edited)
yeah, my Cherokee mileage sucks! It's gotten worse. With the high gas prices, I really am considering going to a more economical car such as an Subaru. Any rate,  it's in the teens at best.  Lots of my friends and relatives drive Subaru's including my mother and girlfriend. They seem like a good compromise. You can still do logging roads if not too rough and the mileage is much better.

I can attest to the Subaru Forrester's capabilities. Man that thing can cat walk some of those rough forest roads. The only problem I had, is with a car suspension instead of a truck suspension, you bottom out a lot easier. I noted a 3-4MPH into North Fork River out of North Bend as opposed to an equally rough road down in Squilchuck on the Beehive with the jeep averaged 7MPH.

 

You will get what you paid for. As an urban car goes, the Subaru can't be beat, and it will handle the rough road when needed. As an off-road vehicle goes, you can't beat a an SUV or equivalent that was designed for it.

 

:laughing: So, based on the experience of both types, to get me to quit driving the Jeep, you're going to have to pull me out of my upside down jeep after prying my cold dead hands off of the steering wheel. ;) Or, someone's going to have to develop an alternative fuel source to run it as cheaply and with as much horsepower.

Edited by TotemLake
Link to comment
GeoCrickets

+GeoCrickets

Posted
Posted
Who says you won't be too sick/injured to go next time you get the urge?

 

 

Okay, now that I'm done with my rant - I have to finish getting ready to hop on a plane to Fiji this afternoon. :laughing:

Mrs. Shop99er here.

 

I'm totally with Belleterre. Life is to short and you can't take it with you.

 

Mark has had two nearly fatal incidents (one falling off an aircraft carrier and breaking his back, the other was being hours away from a major heart attack). While I was sitting in Harbor View's ICU it dawned on me.... It could have all been over in the blink of an eye. From that first incident on we started living for the minute. That's also about the same time that Mark started wearing Aloha shirts on a daily basis. Every day should be an occasion.

 

I've left dirty dishes in the sink and turned off dinner in mid-cook to go with Mark to bag a cache. We've spent more than we had on trips and never regretted it for a second. We many not have a fortune in the bank but we are more than rich in experiences and memories. I don't want to be on my death bed thinking 'Dang! Why didn't I (fill in the blank)?".

 

Mark and I will be embarking on a nearly month long vacation tomorrow morning. We're taking Amtrak from here to Chicago, DC and Orlando. We'll play and cache a week in Orlando then take the train back up to New York for another week of fun and caching. Then we go from NY to Chicago, down through the center of the US and play a few days in LA before heading home. The train tickets alone factor out to WAYYYY more than $100 a day in gas. It's going to be worth it. Every dime of it.

 

Get out there Dick. You're burning daylight and those dollars are burning a hole in your pocket!

Have a great trip. Taking Amtrak is a very nice a relaxing ride. I have done a few trips on Amtrak and they we some of the bet I have done. You will meet lots of people that are very friendly.

 

Richard

Link to comment
WATreasureHunters

+WATreasureHunters

Posted
Posted

Go, go go, GOOOO! Gas is not coming down. It has gone up 17 cents a gallon just this week. Please be assured that when (IF) it does go down it won't sink as fast as it rises. So go now, while its not 3.50 a gallon. Also, Washington does have some of the most expensive gas in the country so once you get out of the state you may be good to go.

 

Have fun, take lots of pictures, and think of me at Mingo. I plan to go someday...

Link to comment
Silly Look

+Silly Look

Posted
Posted

If Half-Canadian is kicking in 2 cents does it really only count for 1.68 cents US?

 

Road trips are awesome and as everyone else pointed out, gas will not be going down soon, better to do it and regret it then regret not having done it. Read anything by Tim Cahill or Steinbeck’s "Travels with Charlie" to get motivated, then go.

 

Trade the gas guzzler in for a Honda CR-V 4 cylinder and squeeze another 12 miles a gallon into your budget. My wife’s Honda CR-V gets great gas mileage, has AWD, is peppy enough for getting up and going, and room enough for trips if you leave the kitchen sink in the kitchen at home.

 

As Data from "Star Trek - The Next Generation" always said, "Make it so."

 

Don't let a thing like the Four Horsemen of the Apocalypse (Shell, Exxon, BP, Texaco...Sorry, poor taste on my part) stop you from checking out new territory.

Link to comment
W7WT

+W7WT

Posted
  • Author
Posted

We have decided to wait until next spring or summer for the trip. I have deleted all caches from my GPSs. I have kept the printouts. Thanks to the Alton, Illinois cacher for the price of gas. As a youngster I had the trill of my life when the hydrolic brakes went out on our 36 Chevy on one of Altons steep hills. Thanks to everyone. My only regret is not being able to go to Mingo. Dick, W7WT I will now try to close this topic.

Link to comment
Guest
This topic is now closed to further replies.
Followers 2
Go to topic listing
×
×
  • Create New...