Energy Musings - September 9, 2025
Last weekend was our two-day drive home to Texas from our summer home in Rhode Island. We offer are observations from the drive. It is a real-time read on the economy.
Observations On The Road To Texas
Long-time readers of Energy Musings know we live in Texas, but we spend summers in Rhode Island. We get to comment on things we observe or experience during our twice-a-year drives between our two homes. This past spring, we relocated from our 50-year tenure in Houston to be closer to family in North Texas. We now have a home in Grapevine, Texas, an old and historic town. (We have a home for sale in Houston if anyone is interested.)
While Grapevine is nearly 300 miles northwest of Houston, the driving distances from the two Texas cities to our summer home in Rhode Island are only about 100 miles different. That was a surprise we discovered after our spring sojourn north. In preparation for driving home, we explored several alternative routes. The shortest distance proved to be the exact route we had driven in the spring. It is still two very long days of driving, because the elapsed time according to Google Maps is 25 hours and 16 minutes. That does not account for stops for refueling, eating, or sleeping, all of which we do.
Besides paying attention to the road traffic and its mix, we watch gasoline prices on the electronic signs, as we only have to stop a few times to refuel during the 1,736-mile trip. All our stops add to the total distance we drive, and on this trip, an input error in our GPS caused us to have to backtrack about 34 miles to reach our hotel.
Traditionally, we plan where we will stop for the night at the time we eat dinner. When we started calculating the distance we were willing to drive before stopping for the night, we targeted Cookeville, Tennessee, which is midway between Knoxville and Nashville. Checking our hotel apps, we couldn’t find a hotel with rooms available for Saturday night. Since we knew it would be really tough to find a hotel in Nashville, plus it would add significant additional travel time, we targeted Crossville, which is about two-thirds of the way between Knoxville and Cookeville. We found a Holiday Inn Express with available rooms and booked online.
In the course of plugging the hotel address into our GPS, Cookeville was entered instead of Crossville. Driving at night through the mountains of Tennessee, which was experiencing patches of fog, made for a challenging drive, but we finally arrived at the hotel and went in to check in. That was when we found out we were at the wrong hotel. We had traveled 34 miles beyond Crossville, so we needed to drive 34 miles back towards Knoxville. That unfortunate round-trip added about an hour and a half to our traveling day.
As my wife was waiting with our luggage while I parked the car, she commented on the mistake to the person at the check-in counter. The young lady told her that she had been working at the hotel since the start of September and had encountered 10 people who had made the same mistake that we did. Ten mistakes in six days! She said it was a common mistake. Knowing we were not alone in making such a mistake was somewhat soothing; however, we would have preferred to have had that hour and a half of travel time back.
We were struck by the disparities in gasoline prices during the trip. We often watch the pump prices at the Connecticut travel plazas. There are five on I-95 between the Rhode Island and New York borders. Starting at the plaza farthest east, the price of regular gasoline was $3.29, $3.29, $3.25, $3.29, and $3.43. The two farthest east plazas always have the same price. Then the price usually drops by ten cents a gallon. This time, it was only down by four cents, interesting. Then the price goes back up to something close to the first two – maybe a penny or two below, if not the same price as it was this time. When we reached the plaza in Darien (our hometown), we were shocked to see the price jump by only 14 cents. In past trips, the jump was much larger. To us, this reflected a softer petroleum market.
Alerted to the interesting gasoline pricing, we kept a close eye on it for the remainder of the trip. It is hard to see many prices off the interstates we travel through New York and New Jersey. In Pennsylvania, pump prices appeared to be centered in a range of $2.75 to $2.90 per gallon. Prices in Maryland rose. They centered around $3 per gallon. Prices dropped in West Virginia and Virginia, with highs of $2.79 per gallon, but often dropping to $2.55 per gallon. We did see one price advertised at $2.25 per gallon, but we couldn’t tell if that was a cash-only price. Some service stations advertise a cheaper cash price, but then add a surcharge of ten cents per gallon for using a credit card, which is what most advertisements quote.
For the balance of the trip through Tennessee, Arkansas, and Texas, pump prices fluctuated between $2.75 and $2.90 per gallon. When we factor in the differences in state gasoline taxes, it is interesting to estimate what wholesale pump prices were. For example, among the states we traveled through, Texas had the lowest state tax at 20 cents per gallon, followed by Arkansas and Connecticut at 25 cents, and Tennessee at 27.4 cents per gallon. At the other end, Pennsylvania has the highest tax at 58.7 cents per gallon, followed by Maryland at 46.19 cents, Virginia at 41.678, and West Virginia at 35.7 cents per gallon.
Given the spread of state gasoline taxes, one would have expected a wider range of pump prices. This suggests that not only are wholesale prices lower in some states, a function of the gasoline supply system, but also other costs that impact the profitability of service stations, including labor costs, real estate taxes, and the profits from other products sold. Retailing gasoline is an interesting business, best exemplified by the low pump prices at Buc-ee’s, which attract customers for food and other goods for sale, generating substantial sales. Attracting the public with a non-differentiated product means price becomes a key driver. However, the rest of the retail experience must be good, or it will be one and done for visits.
That brings us to the eating experience. Our routine is McDonald’s for a quick lunch and Cracker Barrel for a slightly longer but still speedy dinner. Both brands have become our “go-to” choices because they populate our route and we can count on their restrooms being clean and the food consistent, although not necessarily five stars.
Our experiences at the two McDonald’s stops were similar: clean restrooms, functioning ordering kiosks, a lack of crowds, and attentive service. We were struck by a pricing difference when ordering. At the Pennsylvania McDonald’s, the cost to add two slices of Roma tomato to the hamburger was $0.69. The following day at a McDonald’s in Arkansas, the tomato slices cost $0.40. Perhaps Roma tomatoes are significantly cheaper in Arkansas compared to those in Pennsylvania. However, we suspect that the cost of labor is significantly different between the two locations, and cutting the slices is a labor-intensive process. Interestingly, the minimum wage difference is not what you expect. Arkansas’s rate is $11 per hour, while Pennsylvania’s rate is $7.25. So, the answer to the cost difference must be the price of the tomato.
For years, our dinner stops have been at one of the 600 Cracker Barrel restaurants. Again, we count on clean restrooms and a diverse menu. This summer, the restaurant became the subject of a vast media controversy over its plan to make significant adjustments to its restaurants, particularly its iconic logo. We had read about and seen pictures of one of the first restaurants that received the corporate makeover. The memorabilia was removed, the walls were painted white, and only a select few items were rehung. They installed booths along with some tables. Pictures from a recent redo showed white walls with more memorabilia on them, but no booths were visible. We always enjoy looking at what is hung on the walls. We have no idea why they want booths that force people to slide in and out.
The corporate logo, used on the restaurants and billboard signs, was redesigned to remove the old timer seated in a chair and leaning on a wooden barrel, along with the tagline “Old Country Store,” but keep the restaurant’s name and its iconic yellow background. After realizing its mistake, the company backtracked and announced it would keep its iconic logo. We read that, besides being in restaurants, it is also on 1,400 billboards, down from 1,600 five years ago. The latter reduction reflects the difference in how the public is often prompted to make restaurant choices – digital media versus signage.
There were no changes to signage or the décor of the two Cracker Barrel restaurants we stopped at. Over the years, Cracker Barrel allowed its food and service to deteriorate. We noticed it and adjusted what we chose to eat. A few years ago, it experimented with serving alcohol. That quietly disappeared. The buttermilk biscuits and cornbread pieces shrank. Various dinner selections were modified or removed from the menu as new options were added. The menu can often be confusing. Breakfast at any time became our meal of choice, even at 6 pm.
We ate the same meals on Saturday and Sunday. If the two dishes were compared, they would have appeared as identical. However, we noticed differences in how they were made - the French toast at one restaurant seemed to have been made with stale bread, and the pancakes were of different sizes.
The other difference was the crowds. We attribute that to the restaurant locations. Saturday night was in Christiansburg, Virginia, home to Virginia Tech. Sunday was in Greenville, Texas. The Virginia crowd was large, and classic family groups, some comprising three generations, occupied multiple tables pushed together. Although the restaurant was not full, it was nearly full and energized by the young children and the lively family discussions.
In contrast, at 5:30 pm on Sunday, the Greenville Cracker Barrel was nearly empty. There were more diners by the time we left, so the occupancy may have been a function of more people eating lunch on Sunday and our early stopping time. We can only guess.
Upon entering the dining room, the staff at both restaurants emphasized the daily specials, something we had not seen in the past. We also noticed a menu section offering hamburgers. Again, something we have not seen before. We were surprised that our Texas bill included a handwritten Bible reference, but it was understandable given the cultural background of many of the young workers. Reportedly, one reason for the corporate redo was that they wanted to make the restaurant a desirable employer for the younger generation. Perhaps their existing culture will attract the hardworking youth who make the restaurant successful.
Road traffic is the key thing we focus on during the trip because it often provides a real-world view of the economy’s health. Not surprisingly, traffic was light early Saturday morning as we drove through Connecticut, New York, and New Jersey. Both the traffic and truck traffic increased when we reached Pennsylvania. The truck traffic was even heavier when we turned south onto I-81 near Harrisonburg.
Carlisle has one of the largest warehouses for the trucking company Old Dominion. We estimate that on the warehouse side closest to the highway, there were at least 50 bays. Every bay had a trailer parked, although most were not attached to a tractor. All the other bays seemed to have trailers, as well. Furthermore, there was a sea of trailers and tractors all over the yard. Is that a sign of activity or a lack of business? On Sunday, we saw another massive warehouse for the global logistics company AFP in Arkansas near Memphis. It was loaded with trailers and truck tractors.
All the various state-maintained truck rest areas and commercial truck stops seemed to be very full. As is usually the case, we found trucks on the entry and exit ramps of these locations, suggesting that the drivers were unable to find a parking spot upon arrival.
On Sunday, while traveling on I-40 and I-30, we were surprised to see such heavy truck traffic. For most of these highways, trucks accounted for one-third to 40% of the total vehicle traffic. Those highways are on either side of the Mississippi River at Memphis and stretch between Little Rock, Nashville, and Knoxville.
The other shocking experience was the heavy traffic we encountered as we entered and transited through Nashville at 9 am on Sunday. We looked up and saw that the Titans were not playing at home that afternoon. We do know that Nashville’s economy has been booming (we saw several new multi-story buildings being built), but the magnitude of the Sunday morning traffic was a shock.
The economic conclusion we reached from our two-day trip is that, although it is not booming as in past years, it is not in a recession. Economic slowdowns are often difficult to predict and know what may happen in the future. Our conclusion fits with the confusing economic data being reported by government and business groups.