My Little Gas Price Survey, Day 3 2

Seems to have been a failure. The batteries in my little tape recorder that I used to take notes died. They didn’t die enough to kill playback, but they died enough to kill record.

So here are my observations:

Prices in Virginia remained unchanged.

I caught only one price in Maryland, near the town of Berlin (I came back a different way), and I think it was somewhere around $3.15, but I am old and my memory is weak.

Prices in Delaware were once again all over the map, but $3.29 seemed to be the most common one. The highest I recall seeing was $3.39. The lowest was $3.0-something (I think $3.05) at the Smyrna 7-11. The Valero across the street was a penny more. There was no particular geographic pattern.

The wide variety of prices extended the length of the state. It’s worth observing the prices as you drive around so that, when you get low on fuel, you know who is less expensive (I nearly typed “cheaper,” but somehow the word “cheap” seems inappropriate here, even though in its literal meaning it might be appropriate.)

I saw no stations without fuel for sale.

By the way, if you use walkie-talkies (including those “personal FRS radios,” keep this in mind: transmit dies before receive. So you can be listening and not know the other person can’t hear you because you’re not transmitting. It takes more enery to send than it does to receive, just as it takes more energy to record than it does to play.