$4.83 Diesel by Greg

Yesterday we filled both rigs with diesel plus filled the empty 20 gallon propane tank on the motorhome. Total cost was over two hundred dollars and that was for less than a half a tank on the Jetta and a third of a tank on the Airstream. If I had to fill both the Jetta and the Airstream from empty it would be 97 gallons. At five bucks a gallon that’s too close to $500 as not to matter. That will get us close to 800 miles down the road Five hundred a month is more than I want to spend on gas but leaving it at a tank a month in the budget and call it 65 gallons. It will take us what?, five months to cross the U.S.? And if the predictions of $8 or $10 gas are true then say 10 months? I think I would need to add in another tank in the Jetta for site seeing and errands It will allow us to get to know intimately the places we stay since it will only take three days of 200 days to use up the tank. The price of gas has finally reached game changing levels.

Our story is one but I can’t imagine how those who drive 50 or more miles one way to work can afford this. We are in for systemic shock and much sooner than I for one thought it would happen.

Oh well, for us the bicycles will get even more of a work out and we will plot where to move the MH to so as to strategically get the most out of our time spent exploring locally.

At any rate, we are not really going far yet. We pull out of Salem tomorrow but only a hundred miles or so then we will land for I hope a month of exercising, bicycling, fishing, hiking, sleeping and loving in the Cascades. This next month in the Metolious River drainage then some time further south near Crater Lake/Diamond Lake at my all time favorite campground, Hamaker.

That’s about as much planning as we need right now. We have a wedding at Fall Creek July 5, my 40th high school class reunion and General Council in August. Then we will be heading points east or maybe south. But that’s a ways off and we will spend this summer seeing Oregon.

Finally! Back to travel blogging. One more note, we will be leaving tv land for the rest of the summer. I will not be obsessed with the presidential campaign which will lower my blood pressure by 10 points. I plan to make a real point of that particularly in September and October. It is going to be ugly.

We will not have cell phone or internet where we will be camped. However, Camp Sherman will likely always be within easy bicycling distance and they have WIFi. That will be a daily trip for coffee and internet. Might have to do Skype or something to telephone. Depending on where we land we may only be a few miles from cell coverage as well. So we won’t be incommunicado.

Greg