How are gas prices and inflation going to affect your diving?

[Marie13]

Although not dive related, I find myself in a bit of a travel dilemma. I live in SW Ontario about 100km/60miles from Toronto. I am going to be on a photography workshop this fall in Owens Valley California (basically between the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains and Death Valley NP).

I have two realistic options:

The first is to fly into Las Vegas, get a rental car and drive to the location of the workshop (about 5 hours & crossing through Death Valley). The extra costs with this will add up quickly. (If I fly out of YYZ, I will need a Covid Test, an night in an airport hotel, parking at the airport, insurance on the rental car etc. If I drive to BUF, I can eliminate the Covid test, but then I won't get a non-stop flight and I will have to pay for baggage).

The second is a road trip. Here, I will be on the road either 3 very long days or 4 reasonable days. I will need to pay for gas plus hotels & meals while enroute. Covid tests are not required if crossing the border into the USA at a land crossing, so that is a cost (about $75CAD) that I can eliminate.

I did some number crunching, and even with gas prices the way that they are, the 2 options are surprisingly close in price. I am leaning towards doing a road trip. It has been a while since I have done one, and it will give me flexibility in what I bring that I wouldn't get if dealing with an airline's baggage limits.

Road trip! That options wins hands down, IMO.

 

[Hoag]

Which ever you choose - if you can find the time and $, on either side you have Death Valley (especially if you are equipped for off/rough-road travel) and the Yosemite High County, which are both incomparable! We have many trips to DV, WS, OV/Mono/Bodie, & Yosemite. I've done a workshop in DV and my wife has in OV/Mono/Bodie and Yosemite. Feel free to reach out in DM.

Thanks, I did a photo trip to Death Valley in 2019 (in what I refer to as "the Before Days") and was able to capture some of its majesty. I will be in a 2019 Volvo S60, so it isn't exactly off road capable. One of the locations that I plan on stopping at after the workshop is Father Crowley's Overlook in Death Valley, also known as the "Jedi Transition". (Tragically, in the summer of 2019, there was a fatal F/A18 crash at the Jedi Transition that in addition to killing the pilot, injured a few people viewing from the canyon rim. Flight ops below the canyon rim have been prohibited ever since.)

This is a shot of an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon taken at the Jedi Transition in March 2019, a few months before the crash.


The workshop will be based out of Bishop CA and we are scheduled to hit many of the places that you mention and a few others.

 

[tarponchik]

Although not dive related, I find myself in a bit of a travel dilemma. I live in SW Ontario about 100km/60miles from Toronto. I am going to be on a photography workshop this fall in Owens Valley California (basically between the eastern edge of the Sierra Nevada mountains and Death Valley NP).

I have two realistic options:

The first is to fly into Las Vegas, get a rental car and drive to the location of the workshop (about 5 hours & crossing through Death Valley). The extra costs with this will add up quickly. (If I fly out of YYZ, I will need a Covid Test, an night in an airport hotel, parking at the airport, insurance on the rental car etc. If I drive to BUF, I can eliminate the Covid test, but then I won't get a non-stop flight and I will have to pay for baggage).

The second is a road trip. Here, I will be on the road either 3 very long days or 4 reasonable days. I will need to pay for gas plus hotels & meals while enroute. Covid tests are not required if crossing the border into the USA at a land crossing, so that is a cost (about $75CAD) that I can eliminate.

I did some number crunching, and even with gas prices the way that they are, the 2 options are surprisingly close in price. I am leaning towards doing a road trip. It has been a while since I have done one, and it will give me flexibility in what I bring that I wouldn't get if dealing with an airline's baggage limits.

For a single traveler the prices are indeed matching. For 2+ travelers driving wins.

 

[-JD-]

Thanks, I did a photo trip to Death Valley in 2019 (in what I refer to as "the Before Days") and was able to capture some of its majesty. I will be in a 2019 Volvo S60, so it isn't exactly off road capable. One of the locations that I plan on stopping at after the workshop is Father Crowley's Overlook in Death Valley, also known as the "Jedi Transition". (Tragically, in the summer of 2019, there was a fatal F/A18 crash at the Jedi Transition that in addition to killing the pilot, injured a few people viewing from the canyon rim. Flight ops below the canyon rim have been prohibited ever since.)

View attachment 727042
This is a shot of an RAF Eurofighter Typhoon taken at the Jedi Transition in March 2019, a few months before the crash.


The workshop will be based out of Bishop CA and we are scheduled to hit many of the places that you mention and a few others.

While my old 245s could probably have made some of the deep back-country roads if babied, any of the 7's or front-drivers (or AWD derivatives) would probably be shaken into a pile of wreckage on the washboard. (245m, 245m, 745Tm {absolutely never should have sold this}, V70 {crap}) We did do Racetrack-Lippencott-Saline in a Chevy Trailblazer rental with street tires - My wife got out and walked going over Lippencott, leaving my toddler son and I to happily negotiate it on our own .

Unforgiving terrain! They used to run up into my favorite section (Saline Valley) too. Been too long for me! We are hitting Yosemite in July, though - would not want to be in DV then!

Have an awesome trip!!!!

 

[Degenerate]

For the vast majority of Americans, an EV is WAYYY better for the environment. Unless you live in an area burning pure coal, with no energy plant regulation (in which case, your state needs to clean up their act, the electricity is way cleaner than a gas car.

Electric Vehicle Myths | US EPA

I don't live in the US, I live in Sweden.
Electricity used to be cheap and stable when we had a bunch of nuclear reactors up and running but the geniuses in charge of our country decided that we should close pretty much all of that down.
Now we mostly import electricity that's generated from burning coal, and we also go through an insane amount of oil to produce electricity.
Prices have skyrocketed to laughable levels for those who didn't lock in their price before this all went down.

Either way, I am spending way less money driving my EV around than I did when I had my ICE car, which means more money that can be spent on diving.
That is the only reason I made the switch and I don't regret it at all.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

For all the Luddite’s who can’t get a grip on the future
View attachment 726812

Yeah, but all the farting by the horse adds to atmospheric warming gasses. Methane is 20 times more of a green house causing gas than CO2.

 

[Eric Sedletzky]

We live in the sticks and loose power pretty often due to trees breaking overhead lines. The greatest irony is a neighbor has two Teslas and has to charge them with their propane generator when the grid is down.

They also have solar panels but the way it is wired (probably because they also have a generator too), they can't deliver power to their house when the grid is down. Of course the price of propane is at a record high too.

California's solar policy is especially stupid. A high percentage of the population lives close to the coast where fog and overcast is far more prevalent. The policy encourages us to put individual solar collectors on our roofs where they are dangerous to clean. Of course dirty panels further reduces generation capacity — to say nothing of compromising the weathertightness of the roof. Did I mention that the coast also gets higher winds?

It would make so much more sense to encourage us to invest the same money in local solar farms. They would be located a few miles inland where the land is much less expensive and there is way more sunshine. Solar farms are professionally maintained and are less expensive to build per watt. Cows and sheep like to graze in the shade under the panels so ranchers are happy to lease the land cheep. That saves solar farms the cost of mowing and homeowner-investors would get a better return.

I don’t know why they don’t consider more wind power where it’s always windy. I go to Point Arena a lot and the fog always seems to be rolling in. It’s always windy too but I don’t see any wind mills anywhere. Same with Bodega Bay, the Petaluma Valley around Valley Ford and Two Rock, those are notoriously windy areas and not a wind farm anywhere to be found. Yet Gavin is tearing out dams now that provide hydro power because of the Salmon runs, which I can see. Those dams should have probably not been built in the first place, but that was also the 1950’s.
At least build some other power sources BEFORE you take them out. We already have enough power supply problems in the state.
And figure out your water supply, they penalize us where it rains, but Southern California gets all the water they want to water their lawns, golf courses, and lush landscapes.
Politics at it’s finest.

 

[Gone for diving]

Yeah, but all the farting by the horse adds to atmospheric warming gasses. Methane is 20 times more of a green house causing gas than CO2.

So... Hook a pipe to it so heat can be made in the cart can't waste that fuel.

Fun fact,
greenhouses make more thinking grow fast and better. In fact they like high co2 levels in a greenhouses...

 

[formernuke]

Yup we have water bans in MA because of a drought. Makes me laugh, I grew up in Southern New Mexico. One rain storm here is an entire years worth there.

 

[Tracy]

Time to swing by Costco before you drop the boat if that's an option.

I stopped at the Meijer gas station in Bad Axe Michigan last weekend. They just stared at me when I asked to prepay $1000 on pump 10.