It's a tough trade-off. I'm an environmentalist, but I choose to live in the country because I like living in a quiet, clean wooded setting with deer, songbirds, and other wildlife rather than near the roar of traffic or lawnmowers. And I like living where I can ride my bike for many miles, straight out from my house, with very little traffic. However, the trade-off of living so far out is that I have to commute 30 miles to work each day and fill my tank with gas at least once a week. I feel bad about that.

Since I'm too far from work to bike-commute (on back roads it would be more like 40+ miles each way), I try to make up for my driving during the week by not driving anywhere at all on weekends whenever possible. For instance, this past Saturday, hubby and I rode our bikes to the nearby farmer's market for veggies, the post office to pick up our mail, and then to another food market for more non-perishable groceries. He had panniers on his bike so could carry everything. We rode our bikes 43 miles on this trip so saved a couple of gallons of gas. And Sunday we rode over and back to a bike club ride, so didn't drive at all either. That's my kind of weekend!

I find myself agreeing with those who have posted that they wish gas would go even higher so that Americans would be forced to change their lifestyles; otoh, for my own selfish reasons, such as liking to take road trips now and then, I hate to see it go too high. No easy answers here....

Emily