It seems every summer the price of gasoline goes up but never goes down to the same price after the season. In this way, prices creep up; it's the corporations' way of making the consumer adjust slowly to the rising price. Fossil fuel is finite, I think everyone agrees on that. No matter how you look at it, Americans have it easy: with such low gas prices, the average American can drive around anywhere in their big SUVs or luxury sedans from their homes in the suburban sprawl. That shouldn't get a rise out of anyone; it's true. We're those Americans.

Lori asked me whether the rising gas prices have had much effect on our travels in Europe. Well, we certainly knew it would costlier there. Since the bulk of our 2-3 years would be spent traveling to and from crags, we knew we'd want to save money wherever possible: cheap food (hah, France), cheap accommodations (campsites, illegal camping, holiday housing), cheap entertainment (books, computer, camera, yarn). And, a car with good fuel economy. So yes, gas prices have really cut into our budget (the exchange rate doing a fair bit of damage as well), but it's just us, American us, adjusting to European prices.

I took Lori's question a step further: I decided to compare our 4Runner sport utility in the US with our Micra hatchback in Europe, and this is what I came up with. Pay attention to the "If used in Europe/the U.S. columns". Now, if we could only ship the Mickey back to California...