BY THE NUMBERS

By The Numbers, a look at what’s in the news . . . by the numbers. These are just numbers, not suggestions that they mean more or less than what they are. We do not suggest that one number is connected to another. These are simply facts with no extraneous details, bias or slanted reporting. To borrow (and perhaps mangle a bit) a quote from legendary fictional detective Joe Friday, it’s just the numbers, ma’am!

Remember those wonderful days of summer? Used to be school got out in June and we didn’t have to go back until September! Summer meant sleeping in, playing all day and, oh yeah, mowing the yard. But another thing summer also usually meant was the annual family vacation. Did you sit facing the rear in the family station wagon? Some of us did. So today, we take a fond look back at summer vacations!

104

No matter what Phineas and Ferb sing (Google it, grandparents), there are not 104 days of summer vacation. For most school systems, there are 10 to 12 weeks allotted for summer break.

31 cents

That was the cost of a gallon of gas in 1965, making that summer trip to Yosemite pretty affordable.

57 cents

The cost of gas 10 years later. So instead of Yosemite, maybe the summer vacation was to the Ozarks in Arkansas?

284

That’s how many miles the average family drives (one way) for a summer vacation today. That’s according to the Bureau of Transportation Statistics.

90%

Nine out of 10 summer vacations involve the family car (which fortunately – or unfortunately, depending on your point of view – no longer involves the family station wagon).

2020

Believe it or not, that was the last year station wagons were made in the U.S. Buick had the Regal TourX. Ford stopped making station wagons in 2005, Chevy in ’96, Chrysler in ’88, Plymouth in ’78 . . . we could go on for a while, but we’re getting car sick.

44%

According to an April report from CBS, that’s the percentage of Americans who plan to go on vacation this summer. For those handy with math (or their fingers and toes), that means more than half of our fellow citizens are not taking a break this summer.

2020

Remember the lockdown during COVID? According to a news story quoting Skift Research, about 35 percent of us took a vacation during 2020. Again, for those handy with math, that means less than a 10 percent increase from COVID to now.

5

Here are 5 popular places for summer vacations: Put-in Bay, Ohio (Lake Erie); Pigeon Forge, Tenn.; Wisconsin Dells; St. Louis; Chicago.

$1,990

The cost per person for an annual summer vacation, according to the great power in the sky – AI.