I just came back last night from a trip to Massachusetts and back that started last Tuesday (two days going up, two days there, two days back).

I’ll tell you about the trip later. At least, I hope I will. I still haven’t told about our trip to Dominica in 2023, or to Europe in 2024. But I hope I’ll write about those sometime, too.

I just wanted to mention gasoline prices. I was rather relieved last night when I saw that prices in my general neighborhood were about the same as before I’d left — about three-fifty-something.

I had not seen a single price below four dollars since last Tuesday. I was shocked when I bought some on the way up in the Washington area last Wednesday, and it was slightly above that mark. That would be the lowest I’d see until my return home.

On the way back, having spent the night in Carlisle, Pa. (because I wanted to revisit some fondly remembered sights from the years when I youngest daughter studied ballet there on the Dickinson College campus), I decided to take a drive on U.S. 11 over to Shippensburg. I wanted to see once more some of the most beautiful farmland I’d ever seen anywhere (it would have been even nicer if I’d headed toward Gettysburg, but that was out of my way.)

On the way, I saw I just barely had enough gas to get to Shippensburg, so I decided I’d stop at the Sheetz on the main drag there (King St.).

There, regular cost $4.19. But it wasn’t just the per-unit price that got me. I was driving a larger vehicle than I was used to, and it’s 18-gallon tank was basically empty. As I watched the numbers spin, it occurred to me to take out my phone and shoot video of the climax of the drama.

That was a personal record total. I’ve paid a little more than $50 a couple of times, years ago. But never anything like this.

So while I really enjoyed the trip, it was nice to get back home last night for a number of reasons, and that was one of them…

Why is it so much cheaper? If Donald Trump were a lot smarter than he is, I’d suspect that he was somehow shielding South Carolina from some of the effect of the fuel inflation he has unnecessarily caused. You know, since the majority of our voters love him so much.

Of course, if he hadn’t launched a wildly unsuccessful war on Iran, South Carolina petrol would still be a dollar less a gallon than it is now…