falling down, falling down

It's a great feeling to see gas prices falling. Last night, on my way home, I saw regular gasoline on sale for $1.98 a gallon. My friend Katie apparently saw it for $1.97 somewhere over near Hillcrest. I guess it's one of the few good things about the current crappy economy -- at least oil (and by extension, gasoline) prices are dropping, too.

This will show how old I am, but when I started driving, gas was way below a dollar a gallon. Eighty cents, maybe? Who knows. I remember that the gas crunch of the very late 1970s was far in the past ... enough in the past that no one really thought about it. Of course, we've all thought about it over the past several years, as gas has climbed to more than $4 a gallon. It was an artificially inflated price, for sure, as speculators pumped the price of oil in excess of $160 a gallon. With the oil market ... um ... "correcting itself" ... we're finally getting some relief at the pump.

It also goes to prove that no one really knows anything when it comes to predicting commodities. We were told we'd never see gas below $2 a gallon again. And in reality, it just felt like we were never going to see it again.

This price drop is definitely good news since I'm going back home (a four-hour drive) for Thanksgiving. Hopefully prices will remain static (or fall even more!) in the coming weeks.