Gas Prices …

I (Donna Crumly Harvey) have intended to write an article about gas prices for quite some time now.  You have all heard that both sister and I are keeping the road hot from the Atlanta area to the Windy Knoll.  Daddy keeps saying that he is OK without us coming but we both know that the loneliness is hardest of all for him.  I have also heard him say that it gets harder and harder to tell us bye and see us leave on Sunday afternoon to get back to Atlanta, but we are all adults and know that both sister and I have jobs that we are not to the point of being able to retire.  Beth has been teaching for as long as I can remember with a little time off to work for public companies in other capacities but her heart has always been in the teaching arena.  Beth is wonderful at teaching students how to learn and it doesn’t always show up on their test scores for the year they have been in her class but she has gotten reports from students who have one on in school to tell her that her class helped them more in every class and made all their classes easier and just how much they were thankful for having had her as a teacher.   Her I go again, chasing rabbits.  But the reality is that gas prices seem to have no rhyme nor reason to them.

In the area where I travel I currently see gas prices at $3.39 for regular and heaven only knows what the other octanes and diesel prices are.  I have made a number of pictures over some months of various stations.  Now what we have come to understand and told my friend as they came to the funeral in June to not buy gas until they get to Alabama.  Just last trip I made I asked my sweetie to put the 4 gallons of gas from the lawnmower shed in my car and put the empty 5 gallon can in my trunk so I could make it to the Grub Mart in Centre, Alabama.  This is the bathroom stop for me (I have been told I have a squirrel sized bladder, teeheehee) and I put fuel in the car.  I can set the monitor to tell me how many miles to empty and on that trip I was really sweating to determine if I would be pushed into calling AAA and boy oh boy would my love have harassed me about running out of gas, but the Lord was riding with me on that trip and I was able to make it to Grub Mart.  Most time the price is best here in Centre and it is usually the same price at Walmart or Grub Mart and for me it is just easier to pull in the Grub Mart.  I think I do have one price her that I took the last time we were in Hawaii and the gas price was over $4.00.  Cannot imagine living with those prices all the time.  I can remember when I was just out of the house with my own car that gas prices were $0.25 per gallon.  Those were the days and we just did not know it.

I have been amazed as I talk with people about gas  prices, just how many people do not even watch what the gas prices are.  It is strange that one station just across the street from another can have different prices.  One of my friends said she just bought gas where it was convenient for her and did not care about the price.  I was totally shocked as I would prefer to have the difference in price in my pocket rather than someone else’s.  It may just be one penny but I don’t ever just purchase one gallon and then I have to buy at least one tank of gas every week and sometimes more.  I have even been lecturing my sweetie about his lead foot and running the truck oft times with the RPMs over 2000.  If you don’t know this is going to use gas much faster and lower your gas mileage and increase your fuel consumption.  Do you think I might sound a bit like John Crumly?  Well, Kemosabi, you are right!  I even have been checking my gas mileage on my trips back and forth to Windy Knoll and discover that I get better mileage on my way home.

Back to Grub Mart on my last trip over I found the gas to be at $2.98 and I got very excited.  This trip purchased at $3.07 at my Centre station and then when I got to the Gap at the top of Sand Mountain, just after climbing the long hill coming from Collinsville where the price was $3.04.  I was so disappointed that I had wasted $.03 per gallon.  Now I wonder, why in the world I did not check the App “Gas Buddy” before I left Atlanta where gas was $3.39.  So my thinking is saving $0.32 per gallon on 20 gallons of gas, more or less, is $6.40 still in my pocket.  Why in the world are gas prices so much better in Alabama.  I may have a little theory in this one. 

A few years ago when everything was going down and gas prices were dropping, the Georgia legislature passed a law that if gas prices changed a certain percentage that state taxes on the gas would be increased.  This was meant to keep the taxes at a level to maintain our road, but they did not put a stipulation in there that it would only take place if gas prices were in decline.  Therefore, what I think has happened is that the prices kept changing but in an upward direction and every time the percentage is reached the gas tax has been increased so we are in the pickle we are today.  I remember a time when mother and daddy would come to Georgia and wait to buy gas there because gas was always $.10 less there due to us being close to the pipeline and the gas not having to be transported over a great distance.  Now here we are in 2014 and gas prices have moved from $.10 below Alabama to $.32 above Alabama.  The way I figure that is we have moved at least $.42 cents a gallon in taxes over Alabama.  Now I suggest that there is also even in the same area some gouging that is going on although the Governor says he will always address gouging.  I passed one station close to home where the price was $3.29 and then then the others where the price is $3.39.  You tell me what is going on.  Normally independents can have slightly lower prices than some of the major stations.

We were on our little outing to the mountains last week and of course, I was watching gas prices and even have sweetie watching a lot of time.  There is one station where we normally buy gas and I will say outside Maryville, Tennessee, but the mister might say I am wrong there.  Doesn’t really matter but we were again delighted to see that gas price at stations in that area was $2.99.  It is high time that the price of gas fell below $3.00 for a large period of time.  This is just my little ole 2 cents worth!  But this was one of those times where sweetie did not want to stop on Sunday and purchase gas so he chose to pay a little more on Saturday evening there in Townsend.  Life is about choices, isn’t it?

Now I would challenge you to watch the gas prices as you travel on your normal highways and by all means use the Gas Buddy App on your smart phone and help keep everyone knowing what the current price of gas at which stations is trending.  Driving as we have been doing is our form of cross-country living.

NOTE:  National Average: $2.79
National Average a year ago: $3.28
(according to CNN.COM)