All Blog Posts from Eye On The Road

We made it.

Independence, MO., the hometown of Harry Truman. The buck stops here, and so do our cars.

We're outside the city's courthouse (thankfully not in it, considering the occasional parking or speeding ticket), preparing for this evening's broadcast, where Nancy and I will wrap up the trip from Main Street.

We've gone a combined total of 3,517 miles in the last five days. The cars have taken a pounding, and so have our bodies. None of us have exercised in a week, we've eaten way too much junk food, and gotten way too little sleep.

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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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Don't get too excited by this sign for $2 gas. We came across this station today - but it's closed down and boarded up.

Ah, back in the day...

We just passed Lowland, Colo.

While that name isn't quite as cool as that of where we stopped for gas on Tuesday – Lovelock, Nev. – it does describe the topography. We've gone from the Rockies to the vast, flat fields of the Midwest. On day four of our trip, the sun's gone into hiding. After three days of mostly crystal clear skies, it's overcast and windy as we move toward Kansas.

We had a decent meal last night inside the Brown Palace Hotel in Denver, but healthy food has been the exception, not the rule. Producer Mark Hooper is currently consuming a Slim Jim and a can of Coke.

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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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The further east we travel, the lower gas prices have been going. We paid $4.16 a gallon in San Francisco, but by the time we got to Denver, we were only shelling out $3.69 per. Oh -- and we logged on to CBSNews.com and discovered that the tracking device in our car had some interesting revelations -- though I had nothing to do with them -- I mean it!

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This story appeared on the CBS Evening News.

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In Platteville, Colo., you'd think corn farmer Dave Eckhardt struck gold.

The price of the crop he sells, up 66 percent in a year. But that's not the only number he's looking at.

"We're spending twice as much on fuel this year as we did last year," Eckhardt said.

So, I said, "you're making more on corn, but you're also spending a lot more on fuel?"

"Right," he said. "I guess in a sense it caught us off guard that it went up as much as it did."

And it's really going to cut into profits?

"It will," he said.

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“It’s heartbreaking.”

That’s how Jim White describes what the combination of high gas prices and high food prices is doing to the group Volunteers of America. I visited their center in Denver, and watched as dozens of people prepared meals of chicken, mashed potatoes, and broccoli. The covered plates get loaded into a truck, sent out and delivered to those most in need, free of charge (you might know this kind of program by the name “Meals on Wheels”).

The average age of people who get these lunches is now 86. For them, a hot, healthy meal would have been impossible otherwise. They are homebound and on very tight incomes. But it’s not just the food that’s important; it’s the human contact. For many of the 1,800 people who get a meal each afternoon, the person who knocks on their door and hands them the food is the only person they’ll see all day.

White, who's been working for Volunteers of America for 29 years, told me it now costs $6 to get each hot meal out. That’s an all-time high.

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It's daily Eye on the Road vlog time, and today I introduce our Team West Coast, including the sometimes illusive and often camera-shy Mark Hooper. We've been driving a Toyota Prius, and it's part of the trend toward smaller vehicles, as Americans look for ways to save money on gas. Forget super-sizing - some people are going extremely tiny when it comes to vehicles. That's where the scooter comes into the picture.

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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