Re: [asa] $4 gas is here to stay

Dave Wallace wrote:
> I priced train travel and it is almost as expensive as air is
> currently and train is much more expensive if you don't want to sit in
> a passenger seat for 36 hours or more.
You don't have to spend 36 hours in a seat. That's the wonderful thing
about trains compared to autos or even airplanes & buses.

I was on a train around 30 hrs to California last summer, and I didn't
pay the extra to get the sleeper car. My seat reclined so far (there is
ample forward room between seats) that I could recline *almost* as
comfortably as if sleeping on a bed. Granted people with back issues
might have trouble sleeping. But I spent much of the daylight hours
walking freely between cars and visiting /watching vistas in the
observation car. It was a delightfully low stress way to travel
compared to the comparably priced airline or auto travel.

Bicycled to work today in a light rain. Found it refreshing, and
invigorating. More cyclist are venturing onto shoulders of busy
highways. Perhaps recreational riding will begin to be replaced with
utilitarian habits. And my wife decided that her trip into town could
be combined with tomorrow's errands --as the overdue costs on some
videos we need to return don't figure so highly now against fuel cost.
In an all-too-rare occasion, our car stayed home where it belongs.
Ahhhh -- to have more days like this one! I hear noisy complaints
about $4, but it's when habits actually change that we know people are
responding in earnest. The speeds most people still insist they MUST
drive at (70 mph speed limit --often interpreted as a *minimum* limit)
makes me think people aren't really feeling the pain yet. Pres.
Carter's wisdom will eventually occur to them via their pocketbook. Maybe.

--Merv

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Received on Thu May 22 23:13:03 2008