I thought price gouging was illegal...

Fortunately, Garrett and I filled our cars with gas on Wednesday night (for a cool $3.50 a gallon, which was pretty good for our area). Thanks to Hurricane Ike, by Thursday night gas prices had shot up to $4.50 a gallon. Now, it's $4.99 a gallon, but that's only if gas is available. Half the gas stations in our area are closed because they ran out! Today Garrett was looking at a "temperature map" online, but instead of temperatures it was showing gas prices around the country. Most states were still green (cheapest) and yellow (just above green), and there were a few red counties around the country, but our state was COMPLETELY maroon, which is the most expensive. California (which always seems to have the priciest gas) didn't even have any maroon counties! So frustrating! Thankfully, I don't have many obligations away home, so I can cut down my driving, and Garrett's car gets the best gas mileage of the two, so we'll get by ok.

It couldn't have come at a worse time for many people in our area, though, because Stake Conference was this weekend, and lots of people have to travel pretty far. In the Saturday evening session our Stake President told everyone to do whatever we could to come to our Sunday session, even if it meant having to buy gas on a Sunday (if gas stations were to reopen). Thankfully, we didn't have to do that, but we did probably use almost half a tank with all the traveling we did (Priesthood session, adult session, babysitters, Sunday morning session, etc).

But of course, Stake Conference was worth it - I loved both sessions, and I got more experience with ASL, so that was great. I interpreted for 3 or 4 talks, which I don't normally do, but it went well. Except for the time I signed "thief" instead of "Shepherd". That was embarassing...