May 12, Monday – Burning Money

I try very hard not to be overly concerned about buying gas. I pick my spot for price and access for my dual rig and drive in. If I fill up and drive down the block and see fuel for 5 cents a gallon cheaper I try not to abscess over it. I’ve found on my trip that there’re scores of independent dealers like Gates, Hess, RaceTrack, Tom Thumb, Flying J. I make an assumed leap that these guys use the big corps’ gas to purchase their fuel from: Chevron, Shell, BP, Mobile. (I heard that Exxon-Mobile made more profit in the last quarter than any other company has in history. I also heard that Exxon – Mobile made more money in the last quarter of last year than Microsoft Corporation made in the last three years!!) On Car Talk they said that these independents like Costco call up several distributors and find the best price and order. So I buy by price not by allegiance to a company. I also set a record on Monday = $212 in fuel cost for Snee-Oosh. This is actually not a fair representation because I didn’t fuel up at the end of the previous day so fueled up before I got on the road then re-fueled at the end of the day of driving. But no matter how I sliced it, it was a shock. I just close my eyes and squeeze the lever on the hose handle.
Another shock to me also occurred on the highway. As I drove north up Florida’s east coast on Interstate 95, I saw smoke, then I saw fire. The palm trees and undergrowth were burning. It had burned up to the freeway, burned the median strip and had jumped to the eastside of the freeway heading for the ocean. The major fire had past but burning items were still flaming away. And there was no one around. We all just drove though the smoke and continued on!! About an hour later six fire trucks in a caravan went cruising southbound. No lights and sirens. Very strange.
I ended up at the Pecan Park RV Park north of Jacksonville for the night and it was here that I’m going to make my stand. I chose this place because it was near the airport for I fly back home tomorrow to La Conner for a week to attend Hannah’s graduation from University of Puget Sound. Here I will leave my tandem rig in storage while on the other side.
While at Dickinson State Park, I was told that fire was an essential part of the ecology and that they burn areas once every four to six years. So while the burning undergrowth and palm trees looked disastrous, it grows back rapidly. However the burns of the day were not good because it wasn’t the right time of year for it.