Gas prices

Tuesday it was $3.82 a gallon here. I read an article that was surprised that Americans bought 3.6 percent less gas last week than they did a year ago. They were surprised about this because retail sales went up and jobs were gained and people usually cut back on gas as a last resort.
This doesn't surprise me at all. People have already the last few years cut back on everything that they can. Since they are staying home more to conserve gas, they are going to need to buy more groceries and entertainment for home.
I know that we are not making one single extra 7 mile trip to town that we don't need to make. Ram's paychecks sat here for over a week because I didn't want to make an extra trip to town to go to the bank. Unfortunately this has hit at a bad time in our family. Ram just had to make two trips 1 1/2 hours away to get some work done on our cars at a dealer-one was a recall that our minivan sliding doors could potentially catch on fire, one was some work that needed to be done under warranty. I'm doing extra trips to the doctor for prenatal stuff. Lamb 1 needs caps on his teeth so it's another trip 3 hours away to the dentist.
In a speech Obama gave recently, he encouraged Americans to get rid of their gas guzzlers. We have already done that. When the whole family is going we take our minivan that gets better gas mileage than our old SUV. When just some of us are going we always take the car that gets better gas mileage than the minivan. Sometimes it is a pain to move car seats to do this, but we do.
It is not an option for my family to take the city bus or walk instead of driving. The bank, grocery store, hospital, etc. are 7 miles away. In order for Ram to do Sunday morning services he travels 42 miles round trip. He can walk to visit the members that live in our small town, but more than 2/3 of the members of our churches do not live in our small town. The nursing homes and hospitals he has members in are 7 or 15 miles away and others are farther. He has 3 trips this week to the town 45 minutes away to conduct church services and other meetings.
Our churches will do what they can do for mileage for their pastor and we have money in savings so we won't go hungry over buying necessary gas. It just frustrates me that government forgets that there really is a big portion of the United States that is not in a city. Because we are not in a city, it is a necessity to have gas, not a luxury.
On top of it all, this week our bank has "teach your child to save week" and we are making daily trips to town for the Lambs to make deposits and do the activities at the bank. I find it very ironic to be spending 14 miles of gas daily so the Lambs can learn how to save their dollars! On Tuesday we were already making a trip to town, but all the rest of the days will be a special trip to go to the bank. The Lambs enjoy this week at the bank tremendously so even if I cringe as I drive past the gas station daily with them, we'll do this daily.
Rant by Ewe is over now. Back to being thankful that we have a car and a minivan to drive and so far have the resources to buy gas to drive them and Ram has a full time Call as a pastor...and the list could continue.