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Gassing Up For Caching


RoyalRed

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Been waiting to get done all of my Spring yardwork and head out caching. Now gas prices are climbing rapidly! Kind of wished I did all those far away caches so I could walk to the near ones now. So how is the rise in gas prices going to affect your caching activities this Summer if prices go over $5 a gallon?

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Another gas topic. I'm game.

 

When the price went over $2.89 a gal it was hurting my gas budget. Since its warming up i'll be riding my bike to work. Fortunately i only live 2 miles away. Even then i can't go anywhere to cache. So now my collection of old game system and games will be going on ebay.

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Well, on top of the price going up, Tupperware just upgraded our Equinox to an Acadia. It is nice, and it is really nice to be able to fit the whole family (6 of us), but $100 CND for a tank of gas seems a bit over board. The Acadia is not nearly as easy on gas as the Equinox was.

 

But, I rarely drive far out of my way for a cache. I have not found nearly enough to require long drives. I also rarely have time to do a long drive. The exception is for planned mountain scramble caches.

Edited by Andronicus
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Another gas topic. I'm game.

 

When the price went over $2.89 a gal it was hurting my gas budget. Since its warming up i'll be riding my bike to work. Fortunately i only live 2 miles away. Even then i can't go anywhere to cache. So now my collection of old game system and games will be going on ebay.

I hear ya...think I am going to get tons of yard work done this year.

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I did a test and found that if all things remain the same, # of shopping trips, to and from work trips, then filling with premium gives me an extra week between fill-ups. It's 2 weeks between fills on on regular. Costs about $7 more per fill now, and we are at $1.29/litre (for regular gasoline) in our part of Vancouver Island. I don't seem to get through the gas as quickly on a caching trip if its premium.

Stop caching? Somehow, I think not...

Edited by popokiiti
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At $50 / tank I know I don't spend as much as others on gas, and I can get a reasonable amount of caches for $20-$30 worth of gas, at least how prices are right now. However, if they go higher than $4 / gallon, I'm going to restrict a lot of my driving anyway. Thank goodness I work from home!

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Been waiting to get done all of my Spring yardwork and head out caching. Now gas prices are climbing rapidly! Kind of wished I did all those far away caches so I could walk to the near ones now. So how is the rise in gas prices going to affect your caching activities this Summer if prices go over $5 a gallon?

 

Think yourselves lucky - it's been over $10 a gallon for a month or so over here in the UK :(

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I halved my gas bill when I got my new job due to not having to commute as far anymore. More than halved it actually. I also lost some caching time when I got this job.

 

Prior to this I carefully planned out my caching trips anyhow due to the lack of density in the general area.

 

So I will continue to carefully plan. I might not go out every weekend this time. I've left a few that are a little higher terrain or on a trail I don't particularly like unfound by home so if I get truly desperate I can do those.

 

Gas prices likely won't impact me that much with this hobby. I won't get to my vacation this year though which was going to involve a trip through multiple states due to not having vacation time again (have to store it up again). But I will do it next year.

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I'm glad to see this topic here.

 

About 10 days ago, I spent a Saturday afternoon geocaching by car--something I rarely do. And I noticed something--I wasn't enjoying myself as much because I was focused on the gas that I was spending. So here are my general geocaching rules that I try to abide by, as far as transportation is concerned:

 

(1) Biking (bicycling) to caches is BY FAR my favorite way to cache. Good exercise and I can cover several miles fairly quickly.

 

(2) If I don't have a bicycle available to me at the moment, I walk.

 

(3) If I HAVE to drive to a cache, I do so when I'm headed to that particular area anyway--I just leave myself a little extra time to grab the cache on the way (or on the way back).

 

I have found that these are great rules to follow. I get frequent exercise, I don't spend extra money on gas, and it makes my overall caching experience more satisfying. :)

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I've been using my Motorhome, and my F150, both which get about 10 MPG, give or take. (surprisingly the Motorhome, a 22', gets better mileage than the F150. :blink:)

 

As the price of gas goes up, I will use my Honda CR-V a lot more. It gets twice the mileage, (19 to 23 MPG).

 

However, even if I still had to use the gas guzzlers, I would find somewhere else to cut costs. I'm having too much fun with this to give it up.

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Filled truck today w/diesel $135

Yeah, been kind of scared to fill my truck lately. :mad:

So bad - you had to say it twice!!!

 

About $55 to fill up the Jeep today - $3.59 a gallon. Cheaper than many places.

It was $3.89 here in Minnesota yesterday.

 

We went up to 3.99 this afternoon :o

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Filled truck today w/diesel $135

Yeah, been kind of scared to fill my truck lately. :mad:

So bad - you had to say it twice!!!

 

About $55 to fill up the Jeep today - $3.59 a gallon. Cheaper than many places.

It was $3.89 here in Minnesota yesterday.

 

We went up to 3.99 this afternoon :o

 

$3.95 per gallon here. It's gone up about 12 cents in the last two weeks. I filled up last weekend and it cost just over $60. Fortunately I get about 22 mpg and live less than a mile from work, but I still do quite a bit of local driving, mostly taking my son around town to various activities. Riding a bike is less of an attraction as the area is not flat...at all...and I live about 3/4 of the way up a hill.

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Here on the island of Oahu, Hawaii gas prices are hovering between $4.35 - $4.38 a gallon. As you can imagine that really hurts all around, not just geocaching. Thankfully I have one of those little Kia hatchback cars so it doesn't hurt as much as if I had a bigger car or even truck.

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Filled truck today w/diesel $135

Yeah, been kind of scared to fill my truck lately. :mad:

So bad - you had to say it twice!!!

 

About $55 to fill up the Jeep today - $3.59 a gallon. Cheaper than many places.

It was $3.89 here in Minnesota yesterday.

 

Except in one small northern Minnesota town where the gas prices are inexplicably 10 cents cheaper than anywhere else at least....

 

Last summer I was getting 28-29 mpg with my car. Winter not as great but that's expected. I usually fill my tank when it's about half empty (paranoia of running out of gas in the middle of winter).

 

Due to small towns and no public transportation most everyone has to drive up here to get place to place. Some people bike but for many it's not practical. Yay for the rural life. Anyhow, I don't even look anymore when I fill up. I have to get gas. I don't have an option so I choose to not let it consume me and my life at this point. I live on a budget so other parts of my budget has to give (usually grocery money).

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I'm going on a three state caching run later this month high gas prices or not. I don't know how many years I have left on this earth and I'm going to enjoy them while I'm here.

 

Speaking of Wisconsin... This year's color-in-States Geocaching Trip is: Long day's drive to Toledo, Ohio. Day trip to Michigan and Ontario, back to Toledo. Long drive to Kenosha, Wi. Rochester, MN. Guttenberg, Ia. Stops to find caches in IL and IN. Back to Toledo. Long drive back to Joisey. Not sure how many caches we'll find. But, we should be able to color in six states plus Ontario.

I have no idea what the gas is going to cost for this trip! Currently $3.55 in Jersey. That's a 20% increase in four months. That is completely unacceptable! No excuse for that price gouging. And that's all it is.

Going to Maine in October for a wedding. Hope to find some cache in Quebec on the way home...

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The gas prices aren't stopping me from caching but I'm being a little more picky about where I go. I plan my routes so I drive to an area and do as many caches in that area without having to drive after arriving at location. If it means walking more so be it. I enjoy caching to much to give it up completly. I also take the gps with me when I go on vacation so I'll be looking for caches when we do that. I also do caches when I have to travel with my daughter to her softball games. While she is getting ready for the tournament I'll be looking for caches.

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The price of fuel has no effect on my caching.

 

I recently traded my old 15-16MPG (US gallons and $) minivan on a used 15-16MPG SUV. Sure the mileage was no improvement, but it is much more fun to drive than the van.

I get better mileage on the highway (20 or so) but most of my commute is stop-n-go.

 

Not sure what the price of gas is here, somewhere between 3.89-4.05 depending on where you buy (in town, especially that "last gas before the interstate" place, is much higher than a few miles out of town).

 

I end up getting about 320 miles to a 21 gallon gas tank. For me that is 13 round trips to the office. So I only fill the tank every 2 weeks. Granted, it is $75+ each time, but I know it could be a lot worse.

 

At 15MPG, my low end, and $4/gallon gas, it costs $0.267 per mile. $5/gallon would be $0.33 per mile. Each $1 increase raises my cost by about $0.06 per mile. Most of my "caching only" trips are under 10 miles, to the trail head of a rails-to-trails network that can take me much farther than I can physically pedal. My far away cache finds have been made while on vacation or business trips.

 

So for me, the cost of gas has not had any effect. The cost of spare time is much higher. Yard work, home improvement, kid's science fair projects etc always seem to take priority.

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As people often mention on the frequent "gas price threads", can I remind you not to crow about prices as low as $5/gallon?

 

If we in the older countries could pay prices like that we'd have a public holiday declared because of all the celebrating!

 

Two points on that (aside from the obvious that we can, and generally do, all crow about whatever we want :lol:):

 

1) Distances are much different in the U.K. than here in the U.S. or Canada. You can traverse your country in about the same distance as I can traverse my state. Our housing communities are often built many miles from where we work. So, to some extent, you are comparing apples to watermelons.

 

2) I don't know if your gas prices are going up by the same percentage as ours, or not. But the rate of increase is important to how that increase affects one's budget.

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I used almost a tank of gas (Kia Sportage) on a day trip to Palouse Falls (awesome Earthcache) then to Pullman and back to Tri-Cities. Next weekend I have an Epic Road Trip planned-leaving from Yakima going to Lincoln City Or and then driving down the 101 to Crescent City, Ca and then back up to Tri-Cities, Wa. I know gas is gonna be crappy-we are at $3.87 a gallon right now and it is always cheaper in Portland. Gas prices are not going to crimp my geocaching-I am a nurse with no kids so prices are not a problem. I know that most people have to watch their gas budget and I can only hope that prices will peak soon and then drop.

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I'm definitely aware of the price, but it hasn't changed much other than I am trying to combine errends with caching...go to the bank, grab a cache, pick up dry cleaning, grab a cache, etc.

Sounds like you have it backwards to me.....

 

Grab a cache, go to the bank.... grab a cache, pickup dry cleaning.... etc :laughing:

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I'm going on a three state caching run later this month high gas prices or not. I don't know how many years I have left on this earth and I'm going to enjoy them while I'm here.

 

Awesome!!! I admire you for that :D I like your attitude!

I don't know how it is for you, but a weekend spent caching is usually a LOT cheaper for me than a weekend spent "hanging around the house", which generally means running errands, trips to lots of stores, probably cooking a bigger or fancier dinner than I'd make at the end of a long day of caching, etc.

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