We still have our cars, and we still want to get away for the Memorial Day weekend.
Amid layoffs and foreclosures and the gloom of stubborn recession, the AAA motor club says the summer kickoff holiday will see a 3 percent increase in road trips across the nation. For North Carolina, the rise in holiday traffic could be as much as 5 percent.
Inexpensive gas is part of the reason. Even after pump prices spurted 18 cents higher last week, we're still paying about $1.50 a gallon less than we did this time in 2008.
Triangle average prices hit $2.27 for regular Sunday, after having lingered around $2 since February.
Still, Memorial Day gas hasn't been this cheap since 2005.
"We're seeing a lot more driving vacations compared to air travel this year," said Brendan Byrnes, spokesman for Charlotte-based Carolinas AAA. "People who still want to travel are changing their summer plans from a trip overseas to going to see relatives in a neighboring state, or going to Orlando."
Jacob Akers of Spring Lake had fun on a family trip to Hawaii three years ago, but this summer he's staying closer to home. After his father was laid off from his job, Jacob withdrew from his sophomore year at UNC-Charlotte in December.
Jacob, 19, joined his grandfather, Ron Akers, for a camping trip last week at Jordan Lake State Recreation Area, a 30-mile drive from the town of Spring Lake.
At the senior discount price of $10 a night, the elder Akers enjoys camping at Jordan most weekends during the warm months, and he'll be there again for Memorial Day.
"That's a big time, and I've got a lot of friends who go up there," said Akers, 63. "We all eat, play cards, play chess, fish, boat, have a good time. It's cheap. And right now, with the economy the way it is, we're expecting everybody to go camping because they can't go anywhere else."
Gas prices typically rise with the approach of summer. Crude oil prices increased in recent weeks to the range of $60 a barrel, as petroleum investors banked on hopes that the economic slide is leveling off.
But the nation's oil surplus supply is still the highest in two decades, and industry analysts say there's little risk that gas prices will approach the $4 mark we saw last summer. The U.S. Department of Energy predicts an average price of $2.21 a gallon between April and September.
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