Everywhere is walking distance if you have the time.

-- Steven Wright

I don't have to tell you gas prices keep going up.

AAA reports the national average price increased 11 cents per gallon in the past week. Wholesale gasoline prices have increased 140 percent since Christmas.

I don't have to tell my wife, either.

She is our home's economist.

She sits at the kitchen table, grumbling as she writes checks and pays bills. (My job is the much more complicated task of finding stamps.)

She complains about the rising costs and suggests we should have gone to visit our families a month ago.

I point out that gas is $1.40 less a gallon than it was a year ago, so we save money on every trip.

I'm the house optimist.

Optimists, I've noticed, tend to attract a lot of nasty looks from economists these days.

STILL TRAVELING: You never know who you'll see on summer vacations. Sandra and Shirley Johnson, Kesha Williams and Shannon Baldwin are in Las Vegas, were they say they saw President Obama at Caesar's Palace.

Scot and Susan Skadan spent a wonderful week on a cruise in the Bahamas.

Kathy Scukanec sends a card from Florida with "greetings from the Land of Liquid Sunshine."

Bobby and Irene Marsh and Howard and Kim Halcomb send greetings from Alaska.

Fred wanted to make sure I got a card from North Dakota.

Roger and Carole , of Evans, send greetings from the Grand Canyon.

Eric, Kathy, Jacob and Justin McCorkle say hello from Europe. They write: "Traveling from Rome to London, with visits to Naples, Pompeii, Rome, Florence, Venice, Lucerne, Switzerland, Paris and London."

Laurie Tucker, of Augusta, is spending the first official week of hurricane season in Florida. She writes: "I am in Florida for h.s. graduation and to watch a 'rising star' (my niece) pitcher at her summer softball games."

And Dale, Nicole and Rachel Hill are having fun and relaxing in Surfside Beach, S.C. "We are celebrating Rachel's graduation from Burke County High School," they write. And add: "Keep the Westie stories coming."

Why not share a postcard from your travels? Just mail them to me at The Augusta Chronicle , P.O. Box 1928, Augusta, GA 30903-1928.

TODAY'S JOKE: A drill sergeant had just chewed out one of his cadets, and he turned and said, "I guess when I die you'll come and dance on my grave."

"Not me, sir, " the cadet replied. "I promised myself that when I got out of the Army I'd never stand in another line!"