Life's a Beach, seriously

(week 7 notes)

Well with the spiking gas prices we thought we'd change our usual Fall trip to Myrtle Beach to NOW. The trip is about 400 miles...in our van, that's 16 gallons, still not a steep price to pay although EVERYTHING is getting more expensive. We called the place we usually stay, which is a hodge-podge collection of cabins and beach houses, and prices there are a bit cheaper than normal because they're having a lot of cancellations. So we made a deposit and are planning on leaving in a month.

But, with the recent news of SHORTAGES, we may well EAT our deposit. While I can think of worse places to get stuck than there, not being able to get gas would be MAJOR. We may well just wait until the last minute, see how things are going, and decide THEN. We can get there on a single tank, so if we can get a full tank we'll do it and then fill up again the first chance we get. We'll have to see.

Meanwhile, the commuter co-op is going fine. Some of our members are getting concerned about their projects. Mine is pretty set for at least the rest of the fiscal year, but about 1/4 of us are worried their current funding will get cut and redirected to other efforts. Typically our company keeps people on for a while without funding but this may be an exception. If our numbers are true of the whole place, 25% unfunded would mean SERIOUS layoffs FAST. We failed to put a provision in our contracts about layoffs, so presumably people would have to keep paying their monthly membership fee. But I doubt anyone who got laid-off would pay. We may be able to replace them with non-members, but everyone is concerned about our fellow workers and our OWN positions. If I got laid off, we have some savings but we won't last long before we have to start skipping car payments and house payments.

Finally, we are taking steps to secure the van. We have some fears that diesels will be more popular in the coming weeks, even a big-honking thing like ours.