All Blog Posts from Eye On The Road

From race car drivers driving less in Kansas to encouraging bicycling over driving in St. Louis, the times, they are a-continuing to change due to the stratospheric price of gas -- as Jeff Glor and Nancy Cordes continue to find out as they drive toward each other from opposite coasts in the CBS News Series, "Eye on the Road."

On Friday, Glor checked in from the Whiskey Lake Raceway in Junction City, Kan.

He told Early Show viewers, "There's a car culture in many parts of this country, and it's changing.

"Race cars, racing -- people love it. A team that was with me used to be out six nights-a-week. Now, it's only one night-a-week. They used to go as far away as Florida to race these vehicles. Now, it's only 15 miles away from home. And the reason is the prices. It just costs too much to get here and to fill up these vehicles -- $6.50 a gallon for racing fuel."

Doug Thompson, who runs the Kansas Auto Racing Museum, told Glor, "It's not the same as it used to be. The gas prices have just caused a great deal of those problems. But we have as much fun when we go on the one night. We don't have six nights worth of fun on one night."

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This story appeared on The Early Show

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When we rolled into Louisville yesterday, the headline in the local paper was about gas hitting $4 a gallon. That's the case at 12 gas stations in the city. And residents say they can't believe how quickly the price is skyrocketing. It's up 13 cents, on average, here in Louisville, just since Monday.

Four-dollar-a-gallon gas is fast becoming the talk of the town.

One man showed me the receipt from a fill-up he'd just completed and remarked, "Seventy bucks -- good God Almighty!"

Another said the prices make "a person angry."

Anger is just one of the many emotions motorists are feeling as the price of gas keeps rising.

"All you can do is laugh about it," one man chuckled.

But it's no laughing matter. According to many oil analysts, $4 a gallon could be the national average very soon.

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This story appeared on The Early Show

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It's the same story here in Denver that I've encountered across the country: Everybody's feeling the pinch of increasing gas prices, and it's changing how they spend their money.

Larry Clark delivers sandwiches to make a living -- but it's not much of a living these days. He's getting squeezed by the high price of gas on one hand, and low tips on the other. Customers already struggling to pay the bills aren't leaving him much. His tips are down 30 percent.

We went with him and saw exactly what he's talking about.

First stop: Nothing extra.

"She said, 'Thank you,' " Clark says. "Thank-yous are nice, but they don't help us buy our gas."

Some aren't even giving customers the option.

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This story appeared on The Early Show

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We're in Cheyenne, Wyo., about 1,250 miles into our trip, averaging 41 miles a gallon in our Toyota Prius.

You've heard about people going from big cars to smaller ones? Well, some are going even further.

Scooter sales are way up.

We visited one shop in Salt Lake City that's benefiting.

Why? The reason is pretty simple. Scooters average about 85 miles a gallon, and usually cost between $2,000 and $5,000.

Then, there's that feeling you get when you drive by gas stations!

"It's actually a huge relief," one scooter owner told me, "because, before, you just got sort of a sick feeling, like, 'I'm going to have to go there again. I'm enslaved to gasoline.' But now, you fill (a scooter) up, and you go forever."

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This story appeared on the The Early Show

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We're at Victory Field, home of the local AAA baseball team, the Indianapolis Indians. We came to the game to try to find one person who isn't feeling the pinch in some way from high gas prices. We couldn't do it.

One thing that surprised us as we headed here through Ohio and Indiana corn fields was how high the gas prices were, even in farm country. For instance, we paid $3.95 a gallon in Englewood, Ohio.

Those steep prices prompted the Davis family to take in a minor league game here instead of driving to Cincinnati to see the Reds.

Steve Davis told me, "Just getting there is a lot more expensive than coming here, for example. Whereas, I don't know -- a couple summers ago, it would have been a fun weekend."

Over at the concession stand, Martina Evans has changed her mind about a car purchase.

"I was getting ready to buy an SUV, and now I'm not going to buy one," she told me.

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This story appeared on The Early Show.

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Well, we managed to get our first speeding ticket last night, on the way to Cambridge, Ohio, 493 miles from our starting point, in Manhattan.

In Cambridge, we stopped by the legendary Kennedy's Bakery. It's been here since 1925. Anyone in southeast Ohio, if you ask them where they get their doughnuts, they'll tell you they come to Kennedy's. The owners are Bob and his sister, Patty Kennedy.

This place has been in the family for generations. But they've had some trouble lately. This is one of the most financially-trying times they've actually seen here at Kennedy's, because of high fuel prices.

They've pushed flour prices through the roof, from 20 cents a pound to 60 cents.

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This story appeared on The Early Show.

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Trent Schmidt runs a restaurant in Reno, Nev. that produces a lot of grease -- 300 gallons a month.

And the stuff that cooks his fries -- is now also running his car -- a Volkswagen Jetta that's been converted into a so-called "veggie vehicle," a hybrid that runs on a combination of diesel fuel and vegetable oil. In other words -- grease.

Schmidt told me, "I have to say that there is a certain empowering moment when you flip the switch inside the car to go to grease, because then you're driving for free! And I still haven't gotten over that, that every time I push that button, I feel a little bit smarter, and feel like its paying off for me."

While it wasn't cheap -- converting the engine cost him two grand -- Schmidt says he now gets 40-miles-a-gallon and saves between $800 and 1,200 a year on gas.

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