Coastal driving
Since World War II, driving to the beach for a summer week has been many families' tradition. The New Deal and military improved roads gave post-World War II Americans the opportunity to load their children into the car and make it to the Gulf or Atlantic coasts in a day or less.
Plus, with gas hovering around 25 cents a gallon, the rising American middle class, the automobile Americans, jumped at the chance for vacation mobility.
During the 1950s and 1960s, incomes rose faster than energy prices, and people of all ages took vacation trips that often seemed as comfortable as afternoon rides.
As the decades rolled by — and despite the gradual rise of the cost of gasoline (punctuated by spikes in the late 1970s) — people got in their cars, their vans, and now their SUVs and headed for salt water and sand.
But $4-a-gallon gas prices are changing that.
Reports from the Atlantic Coast are that hotel room occupancy is down. Slogans like "Spend a night, not a paycheck" don't have the impact they once had.
As for Alabama's coast, so far, so good. But that could change.
Many of the visitors to Orange Beach and Gulf Shores are Alabama folks who roar down Interstate 65. Mississippi and points west (especially Texas) send some tourists, but for the most part the Alabama beaches belong to Alabamians.
Until winter.
In winter the snowbirds arrive — Northerners mostly, with a sprinkling of Canadians who drive down for something a little warmer and a little cheaper, which is why they stop in Alabama rather than going farther south into Florida. There they have become an important part of that region's economy, but now a good chunk of their money will go for gas.
Although there is a story circulating on the coast about the snowbird who arrived with a white shirt and a $100 bill and did not change either, these vacationers are not cheap. They are frugal, and since gas is a necessity they cannot avoid, they will cut back in other ways.
Those who come at all.
There are many elements in the Alabama economy that will be hurt by high gasoline prices. Tourism is certainly one. Down on the Gulf Coast, tourism is what pays the bills.
