If you’re planning to hit the road this weekend, you almost certainly won’t be alone.<\/p>\n
More than 45 million Americans are expected to travel 50 miles or more, but they’ll be facing record-high prices at the pump.<\/p>\n
The national average has never topped $4 on Labor Day weekend. Clearly, this year in Illinois, the price is much higher. <\/p>\n
Clocking out of work on a Friday, one Chicagoan had his mind fixed on his holiday weekend getaway.<\/p>\n
“Pure Michigan,” Dwayne Richmond said.<\/p>\n
But first, he had to get home from Lincoln Park, and that came at a huge cost. <\/p>\n
\u201cThis is ridiculous,” he said. “Ridiculous.\u201d<\/p>\n
The sign behind him read $5.49 a gallon.<\/p>\n
\u201cI just need enough to get to where I know [it] is $4,” he said.<\/p>\n
Across the country, gas has never been this expensive this time of year, according to AAA. On Friday, the national average for a regular gallon of gas was $4.15.<\/p>\n
That\u2019s roughly a whole dollar more than what it was last Labor Day.<\/p>\n
“Today was a triple whammy: rush hour, the most expensive stop and before a holiday weekend,” said Victoria, another driver.<\/p>\n
Victoria paid more than $70 in total, because, when it comes to gas, she said there isn\u2019t really a choice.<\/p>\n
“Life\u2019s been crazy for a lot of us, a lot of reasons,” she stated. “Family stuff, Work stuff. So I’m looking forward to taking an extra day to relax.”<\/p>\n
It\u2019s a much-needed break from reality – at least until you need to fill up again.<\/p>\n
“I’m doing enough just to get to the South Side,” said Dwayne, another driver.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"If you’re planning to hit the road this weekend, you almost certainly won’t be alone. More than 45…\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":1044834,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":"","_share_on_mastodon":"0"},"categories":[5124],"tags":[960,5386,1818],"class_list":["post-1044833","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-chicago","tag-chicago","tag-il","tag-illinois"],"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/117218252194597246","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044833","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1044833"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1044833\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/1044834"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1044833"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1044833"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1044833"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}