Having done my fair share of road travel (about 30 years' worth of car trips around the West), gas prices are always interesting to me. The steady increase brings back memories of a 10-day road trip I took in August 2008 from San Francisco to Jackson Hole, WY that nearly sent my boyfriend and me into bankruptcy. I also remember, with great fondness, a road trip a few months later, in December 2008, to Zion National Park via Tucson and Las Vegas, during which we enjoyed prices as low as $1.46 per gallon (yes, this also coincided with the economy's downward spiral, but we were still happy for the consequential rock-bottom gas prices despite the world's gloomy forecast). Almost brings a tear to my eye. Tom Stienstra at SFGATE is predicting costlier gas prices for the summer, which, as we all know, has its emotional start on Memorial Day, May 31 (its official start is on June 21). Check out his round-trip calculations for popular Northern California destinations, here. And, if you do plan to travel the tar this summer, let us know where you'll be roadtripping in the comment form below. I'm currenly concocting an Oregon-Idaho-Utah loop for my birthday (which happens to be the emotional start of fall, but still technically summer!).