ARIZONA, USA — Memorial Day is a major travel weekend, but with gas prices averaging $5 per gallon for regular unleaded, many Valley families are putting the brakes on road trips and other gas-dependent travel plans.
The Ament family in Scottsdale canceled a two-week trip to Yellowstone National Park. They had planned to take their RV to the park to go camping, but gas prices have changed their plans.
“We were planning to leave Thursday morning [May 26],” Matthew Ament said. “Double and triple of what we are used to paying is just not realistic for a week here or a week there.”
Ament explained that he filled up his pickup truck with 30 gallons of diesel fuel Thursday morning, which cost him $180.
“[The RV] has an 80-gallon tank,” Ament said, doing the math in his head. He said the family would look to do more things in State 48, like visiting Flagstaff instead of going to Yellowstone.
The Aments have also canceled an annual trip to Lake Powell, where they typically spent a week on a houseboat. Gas is the culprit for that cancellation, too, with the houseboat and a wake-riding boat taking in three-hundred to four-hundred gallons of gas for the week and the trucks needed to haul the family and boat north to the lake.
“That’s easily pushing $10,000 just in gas,” Ament said.
The Ament family is an extreme example, but many people will have to stay home this Memorial Day due to high gas prices, regardless of their plans.
For Ament, that means less time with family in isolated areas where they aren’t interrupted by things like cell phones, work, and video games, and that’s the cost he cares about.
“You only get your kids for so many summers and so many winters before they’re out and doing their own thing,” Ament said.
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