Donna Hendricks isn’t letting her children borrow her car.
As gasoline prices continue to climb, the Port Angeles resident — like people across the North Olympic Peninsula — feels the cost of driving tugging at her pocketbook.
“The gas prices are definitely impacting my budget,” Hendricks said in Port Angeles, where on Friday the average cost for a gallon of regular unleaded was $2.24.
“I can’t let my kids use the car anymore. We have to plan everything out in one trip.”
It’s hard not to notice the rise in costs at the pump.
Gas prices have surged more than 10 percent in the past month to $2.12 a gallon nationwide, the U.S. government said last week.
Washington state’s average was at $2.20 a gallon on Friday.
And the prices may not stop there, so Peninsula residents are taking steps to compensate.
“I just don’t travel as often as I used to,” Mike Gilstrap of Beaver said Friday as he filled his tank for $2.15 a gallon at a downtown Port Angeles gas station.
Gilstrap said he used to drive to Port Angeles twice a week.
“Now I come in two times a month to do shopping, things like that.”
Unavoidable costs
Some say it’s not so easy to sidestep the costs.
“There ain’t much you can do about it,” said Tammy Bocook of Port Hadlock, who pumped gas at the Exxon station on Nesses Corner Road.
“I don’t like it,” she said, “but to get anywhere around here you have to deal with it.”
Another Port Hadlock resident, plumber Donnie Craig, suffers as someone who must drive for his profession.
Craig uses his truck to serve customers in northern Jefferson County.
“It costs the businesses so much money, it’s just not fair, not right,” he said.
The average retail price of unleaded regular gasoline in the state rose 18 cents in the last month, according to American Automobile Association figures.
On April 1, 2004, the state average was $1.93. It reached its lowest point of the past 12 months on Jan. 1 of this year, when a gallon of gas in Washington cost an average of $1.83.
Costs have climbed steadily since then.
Sticking to a budget
Randi LeBlanc, who manages the Gull U Serve gas station in downtown Sequim, said she sees people sticking to a budget when it comes to buying fuel.
“People use less,” LeBlanc said. “They come in, get the same dollar amount, but it’s less in gallons.”
Customers seem to be grumbling less about the high prices, too.
“I don’t get as many complaints as I used to,” LeBlanc said.
“I guess people are just getting used to the fact that this is the way it is.”
LaPush resident James Hobucket plans to park his car permanently in favor of public transportation between the West End and Port Angeles if the cost of filling up gets much higher.
“If the price hits $3 a gallon, that will slow me down,” Hobucket said after filling up his tank.
“I’d probably start taking the bus.”
Toni Castro of Sequim said higher gas prices have already forced her to change the way she goes about her life — and may prompt more changes still.
She drives less and tries to take care of errands once a week, rather than every day, she said.
“It’s tough. If it goes up much more, I’m going to be footin’ it.”
Staff writers Alan Choate, Raul Vasquez and Nick Koveshnikov contributed to this report.
