It’s probably a sign of our current national preoccupation that as Hurricane Katrina swooped in on New Orleans, looking ready to drown whatever it didn’t blow over, the radio and TV news was full of prognostications about its effect on gas prices that have been exploding like a firecracker. Turns out that about 25 percent of our gasoline is refined along the Gulf Coast, and, even if those refineries somehow did escape major destruction, the storm would definitely cause a disruption in the flow of the stuff we should now call “liquid gold.”
As of Aug. 29, the price for a barrel of oil was skirting around $70 per barrel, and the financial and oil analysts (aren’t they the same thing?) were predicting that it would go higher before it had any chance of dropping. I could only think, “Well, good luck, Gulf Coast residents, but, please, get those gas refineries and oil rigs going again!”
Because the price of gas is absolutely drilling a giant hole in my wallet. We’re getting ready to drive two of our horses to Lexington, Ky., this weekend and to Southern Pines, N.C., two weeks later, first for the Adult Team Challenge and then for the American Eventing Championships. And I’m experiencing serious abdominal pain even thinking about what those trips are going to cost me in gas, but, just for your amusement, I’ll do the math. It’s 1,000-plus miles back and forth to Lexington, divided by the 11 miles per gallon the truck gets pulling the trailer, or $235. It’s about 650 miles round trip to Southern Pines, so that’s another $153. Almost $400–enough to make me reconsider going. God, that’s depressing.
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Even worse, the truck–which I drive as little as possible–isn’t the only thing swilling my money. It takes basically 5 gallons of gas to power my tractor and trail-mower to cut my pastures. That’s $12.50 just to put gas in them! I didn’t waste a second or an inch mowing the pastures this weekend. Every second was real money. Want to get even more depressed? Just think what that means to the cost of hay, both to cut it and to deliver it. Oh, great, a double whammy, to my friendly hay farmer and to me too. And I don’t want to even think about what else is getting more expensive because of gas prices. I’m too afraid of what home-heating oil will cost this winter to contemplate more.
I’ve always been a gas miser, probably because I started to drive in the midst of the gas shortages and price hikes of the ’70s. Remember the odd/even rationing days and the gas-station lines? Well, those were my formative driving years, and I’ve kept track of miles per gallon and compared pump prices ever since. (My truck has that little dashboard gadget that computes your current gas mileage and average gas mileage, and I just love it. I drive my wife crazy checking that and the temperature.) But I guess we all sort of conveniently forgot those rationing days. That became painfully obvious to me the other day while driving to work, as I noted the cars around my 35-mpg Honda Civic and roughly counted that more than half were SUVs or light trucks.
You know, I just remembered that 24 years ago, when I’d just decided I wanted to be an equine journalist, the first story I tried to sell (to a magazine that’s no longer around) was on selecting the most gas-efficient towing vehicles and horse trailers. The editor wasn’t interested. Maybe this editor should revive that idea?
