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The Impact of Gas Prices on My Summer Plans

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I have been thinking a lot lately about the High Gas Prices and what they mean for summer plans. I typically enjoy traveling by doing roadside camping in the Adirondack Park and other public lands, so one of the biggest costs in my experiences is gasoline.

I knew gas prices might be high when I bought my truck by spring time. They often are highest around election time, only to fall back down to lower levels after election season. This summer is no exception.

Great Blue Heron Wing Span

So I was thinking about what this all means…

1) Planning longer trips and fewer shorter trips. A lot of the gas is consumed driving back and forth to destination. Far less gasoline is consumed when one is at their destination.

Moose River Plains Road

2) Chose to spend longer time in one destination. Usually when I am on vacation I tend to rush to one place to another, consuming a lot of gasoline.driving from one place to another in the Adirondacks or wherever I may be. Why not pick a campsite, and spend more time enjoying the immediate landscape?

Spruce Along East Canada Creek

3) Avoid idling as much as possible. Hopefully with the deep cycle battery on my pickup, I will be able to keep idling to generate electricity for camping to a minimum.

4) Consider campsites that have as much nearby as possible to do. Possibly choosing campsites near a lake for paddling — like the Wakley Dam Campsites at Cedar River Flow or any of the campsites along North Lake in Adirondacks.

Making Coffee

5) Realize that gas costs really haven’t gone up that much from last year. While gas may cost an additional buck an gallon, that still only means an additional $20-$30 per trip, if the plan is drive between 400-600 miles for vacation. If your already spending $60-90 for your trip on gas, what difference is between that and $80-$120. More money, but if your having fun, so be it.

Cooking Breakfast

6) Not Skipping Things on Trips Because of Gas Costs. In my view it’s pretty stupid to not spend an additional $10 in gas, if have already burned through $40 in gas to get to your destination. If there is something worth seeing, you got to do it.

Still a Pretty Nice Afternoon

7) Finally, just not worry about it. If I am on vacation, just put the gas on the credit card. I will worry about paying it down when I get back home. Things are going to cost what they cost, and I don’t really care much one way or another.

The Age of the Fun Suckers

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The other night, I was an event when the speaker lamented the modern era with all it’s problems and how much fun they had in the “innocent” 1960s. My thought was that’s pretty darn unfair.

Intersection

Why shouldn’t we — the young — be able to have some fun like they had in “olden” days, and wait to be ultra-conservative and have no fun like the old folks?

Cars are an Investment in Pleasure

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Muddy Chevy Silverado

Sure a car will rust and decay, fall apart, and be another junker. One might say it’s a waste of money.

When cars are not being driven solely for pleasure, they are the most miserable beasts, forcing one to follow extreme restrictions and control measures, doing nothing but forcing us to labor for meaningless waste.

Chevy Silverado Muddy Interior

Pictures via Tim Balogh on Flickr, via CreativeCommons license.

Population Density-based Democracy

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One of the concepts I have grown interested in lately is the use of density to draw districts for governing bodies. Rather then draw districts based on historical lines, partisan politics, or ethnicity, why not draw them based on a formula that considers density?

How it would work…

  • Take the entire population of a region, state, or country, and divide it by the number of districts one views as appropiate.
  • Neighborhooring census blocks with the closest average density would be grouped together until they had equal population.

Buildings in South End

Why this is a good idea…

  • Areas with similiar densities have the most similiar needs.
  • Connect farming areas with other farming areas, connect dense urban areas with other dense urban areas, suburbs with suburbs.
  • Representives are non-conflicted by different consituencies, they can be pure in what they advocate for in their elected bodies.
  • Rural, suburban, and urban infrastructure needs are best met when communities are grouped together and non-conflicting in their nature.

Towards Tully

Politicians probably would not like this system as it would make it hard to game the system. There would be far fewer marginal districts, far fewer competitive non-primary races. Yet, fewer consituencies would be underr-epresented due to their minority status in their districts, and there would be more cohesive blocks of land.