It occurred to me that a family of 4, riding in a vehicle getting 25MPG, traveling 200 miles, round trip, to their favorite tourist line is spending about 27 bucks (3.39/gal) just for the gas. Last year that same trip cost about half that-so 3.50 has been added per person in that scenario to the total cost of the trip. Granted, by the time that same family eats and buys goodies-they are dropping better than a C-note so maybe an addition 14 bucks is that much..but 3.00 gas makes them think about 3.00/gallon heating oil. The best test is the real world, how's it been going in the last weeks of summer, before the Sept. slowdown, now that we have 3.00/gas.

We did lousy this weekend -- only 95 riders all day. A normal ride day is around 150. Volunteer participation was down, too -- mostly the hard-core regulars.

Living in a resort area it was obvious the number of people on the road and in the restaurants was very low. A Raleigh newscast reported the NC beaches had less than half of their expected visitors. Here in eastern North Carolina if people are not going to the beach or golfing at Pinehurst on a beautiful Labor Day weekend it is unlikely they are going anywhere. Personally, I canceled two day trips to area venues over the weekend. Even in a 40 MPG Saturn the cost of fuel was more that I was willing to spend just to get there and back.John Bohon

We expected to have to fight our way through the Labor Day Holiday Traffic on the major route to Cape Cod, in order to take relatives to the airport on Friday evening and again to pick them up on Monday evening. It turned out to be a fast easy ride on both occasions. It appears that Katrina finally accomplished what Al Gore had talked about, increasing the gasoline prices to the point where people finally cut down on their driving.

We were down on Sat, up on Sunday and regular on Labor Day. You can just never tell.

A sign I saw at a shop in Carolina Beach: "BUSINESS SUCKS SALE"Mike

It sounds like all the beach areas did poorly. I heard similiar reports for the beaches along the SE Texas gulf coast.Perhaps everybody saw enough water this week? Perhaps it was too hot for some folks?-James Hefner Hebrews 10:20a Surviving World Steam Project

And lo and behold! Price of gas was down 10 cents in Northern New Jersey this morning, on all grades. What a co-winky-dink!!!

Same situation with the gas in western Va.

Not exactly; not only do gas prices always go down after the Labor Day Holiday anyway; but several refineries that were shut down by the Hurricane have started back up; with the remaining three expecting to start up very shortly.http://www.foxnews.com/story/0,2933,168 ... html-James Hefner Hebrews 10:20a Surviving World Steam Project

From what I heard, the Jersey Shore points did well this weekend....beautiful weather and the diehard attitude of the Philly/South Joysey area I guess played a part...even with gas as high as $3.40 for regular at a local station....I know my neighborhood was dead quiet with only a couple BBQ's going..... which means everyone else was down the shore.

Re: Gas prices These stories are nothing more than corporate propaganda. The fact remains that these unprecedented price increases could lead people to re-think their leisure activities which in turn hurts us all in this realm.

It all depends on what your baseline is --If you set it 25 years ago at 1981 -- and do the analysis in cost to drive x miles in constant dollars and assume you drive the same type of vehicle that you did then -- you find that even with the recent run up in fuel prices, it's cheaper to make that drive now than it was then.Now insurance costs and HSA are a different story.Bob H

Many days this summer the Branford Electric Rwy./Shore Line Trolley Museum (Connecticut) has used a 45 min. schedule instead of the more typical 30 min. interval between cars.Personally, I missed 6 weekends of volunteering in July and August due to the high cost of transportion