April is a feel good month. Yes it’s my birthday month, but here’s why everyone can feel good about April: spring is just around the corner with blooms and buds making their green debut, the Girl Guides are out selling cookies, you can donate your Petro-Points^TM to cancer (you can donate points year-round, but we see more donations in April perhaps because with Daffodil Days people are thinking about cancer) and April has Earth Day.

Last June, with gas prices already on a steep incline in Canada and the US,  I wrote about the potential demise of the summer road trip.  With higher gas prices, people were talking about parking the car and the family for a "Staycation".  It was a cute name and all, but unless your home has a neon sign that advertises Vacancy and Free Air Conditioning and your backyard is home to the World's Biggest Ball of Yarn, it had to be a dissapointment.   So I was happy to see signs that the road trip may be ready for a comeback. 

It doesn't seem to matter where you are in the world - the price of fuel is a hot topic of debate.  Even when it's as low as 3 cents a litre (12 cents a gallon).  The Associated Press ran a story this weekend  highlighting how gasoline is subsidized in a number of countries.  Those of us in Canada will no doubt read the following sentence with our eyes wide and our tongues wagging:

"To spread wealth and buy support, many oil producing nations subsidize fuel for domestic consumption. Gasoline sells for as little as 39 cents a gallon (10 cents a liter) in Iran, 60 cents a gallon (16 cents a liter) in Saudi Arabia, and $1.52 a gallon (40 cents a liter) in Iraq, where prices were ratcheted up following the U.S. invasion."

While it's likely some will circulate this story and ask "Why not here?", the entire article by AP reporter Rachel Jones is well done and worth a read.