The Price of Gas in Edison, NJ

I recently returned from a 10 day road trip to Orlando, Florida. Yes, I went to DisneyWorld. Anyone who knows me at all, knows that I have the most sickening fascination with theme parks, Disney parks in particular. I am filled with useless trivia about their construction, what used to be here or there and more details about the facilities and 'how its done' than most would ever care to know.

I think this comes about as a result of the fact that I never attended a Disney theme park till I was 25 years old. My father thought that Florida was a giant tourist trap. And Disney was a giant trap with a mouse built-in.

So the first time I went to Disney, my eyes were wide with the awe of a 6 year old. But my adult brain couldn't get past the 'how'd they do that'. The internet seemed to provide all the answers.

Before this trip, I went on the internet to investigate the cost of gasoline along route I-95 from Houlton, Maine to Orlando, Florida. I needed to budget out the fuel costs since we would be driving down and back. According to various websites, the price of fuel along our route would vary from a high of about $3.29 in Edison, NJ to a low of about $2.47 somewhere in the Carolinas.

For those ill-equipped at math, that's an 82 c difference. Almost a buck. Is it cheaper to get gas to somewhere in god-forsaken Carolinas than to Edison, NJ? Surely that can't be the case, because we took a different route on the way back, and not 94 miles from Edison, the price of gas was a mere $2.65.

If only Thomas Edison were alive and working in his lab in Edison, NJ. Perhaps he could invent some way of distributing fuel and equally distributing the costs of distribution so that the only difference between fuel costs in various states would be the geographic taxation involved.

Oh nevermind, surely the math would be impossible. Sides, President Bush's staff would probably squelch his ideas anyway.

One interesting thing on the TV news while we were in Florida, was the preparation for the impedending hurricane season. The sheer number of clips from last year showing people before a pile of rubble and broken lumber that used to be their home.. saying things like "We's gonna rebuild. God wants us to.." frightens me.

And as a postscript.. apparently you can trust a mormon if you embarrass the crap out of him on the internet, he'll send you the promised video tape. The only catch is, he'll torture you about updating your blog endlessly. It's a fair trade off I guess.