Travel experts say many Americans will be sticking close to home this holiday weekend. It's not so much because home is where the heart is, but because into the gas tank is where the family budget is going.

Remember 30-odd years ago, when foreign oil producers decided Americans weren't fit consumers, and squeezed U.S. motorists out of a few more pennies a gallon? Remember when the price of a gallon of unleaded regular soared to 75 cents, and we started talking about needing cars that get better gas mileage?

If someone had told us back then that we'd be paying $4-plus a gallon now, we'd likely have reacted in two ways. First, we simply wouldn't believe it. We grew up using cheap gasoline, and that's the way it would always be. Second, if we did suspect a kernel of truth in such a prediction, we would have demanded smaller, more fuel-efficient vehicles.

Instead, we find ourselves in an early 21st-century fix -- gas is $4-plus a gallon, and the parade of gas-guzzlers is still bumper-to-bumper on our highways. Smaller, more fuel-efficient cars are coming, but you'd better get your name on the dealer's waiting list.

And while we're waiting, we should be contemplating even higher gas prices. It's as inevitable as summer drought in California.

Less than three months ago, oil was trading at just over $100 a barrel. It's now over $140 a barrel. Wall Street and oil industry analysts say there's really no price ceiling, and $200-a-barrel oil could be with us before the end of the year.

These aren't theories. These are the realities of the worldwide energy situation. You see the shock and awe of motorists poneying up $4 a gallon. Imagine the chaos when -- not if -- the price hits $7 a gallon or more.

Drivers in many European countries are familiar with this scenario. They've been paying $7 or more per gallon for years. The result is that most of the daily traffic in large European cities are what auto experts refer to as "Euro boxes," tiny cars with tiny engines that typically get 40 or more miles per gallon.

Europeans may be used to that, but Americans are not. But we'd better be ready, because it's coming to our shores. Given the supply-and-demand concept, and the general profit motives of oil-producing nations and large corporations, we have no reasonable expectation of anything other than gas prices that continue to escalate.

Think of it this way -- when the price of a gallon of gas goes up a penny, it costs American consumers roughly $1 billion more a year. If the oil producers allow greed to overwhelm common sense, and prices spike sharply in a short period of time, there could be economic chaos, many businesses would quickly fail, and the nation's transportation industry would be in lock-down mode. One economist predicts that if oil reaches $200 a barrel, U.S. consumers would be hard-pressed to have the means to buy much of anything besides fuel.

But that seems to be where this train is headed, and we'd best be prepared, at least emotionally and psychologically, for this shift in the energy paradigm.

We're making this sound dreadful, but in fact, there are upsides to rising fuel costs. Industries that focus on alternative energy sources will be a sound investment. The single-car commute may soon disappear. For some, the folks who can work at home via the Internet, the commute may end permanently. Vacations will tend to be taken at attractions closer to home, enhancing regional economies.

It is, in the end, a matter of perspective and resolve. If we look at this glass as half full, instead of half empty, we are more likely to enjoy the excitement and challenge of a changing world.

One way or another, we are at the cusp of a new age -- like it or not.

(July 5, 2008)