My wife and I drove to Roanoke Virginia today for a Greek festival. We passed a BP in Rocky Mount, Virginia, and I saw that diesel was $3.85 a gallon (we were in our diesel Passat). I told my wife I was going to stop, but she was starving for good Greek cooking, so we went on. I reminded of when we were in Nova Scotia, right after Katrina hit New Orleans. We drove around the north side of Cape Breton Island, and the fuel prices were about 25 cents higher by the time we got back to where we were staying. Sure enough, when we came back by the station, diesel was up to $3.99. Of course, this was still cheap compared to a station we passed in Martinsville, where diesel was $4.65 at 10am.
We were watching the evening news and we got off really easy. Some of the stations in Roanoke were up to over $5 for some grades of gasoline. There were lines at service stations in all the areas we were in.
My impression is that drivers in this area are bending over and yelling, "My billfold is in my hip pocket!", over their shoulders and the oil companies are helping out by sticking it to them. As for me, I can sit home for a few days, until fuel prices come back down. As for the Passat, it does not need to see another fuel pump for about 800 miles, so we can ride this out.