Soaring fuel costs are taking some of the celebration out of this holiday weekend.
Oil prices headed into the busy Fourth of July break by racing past $145 a barrel for the first time Thursday. The story was no different at the gas pump, where the national average soared to within a whisker of $4.10 a gallon.
For a nation accustomed to hopping in the car or jetting cross-country on what is typically one of the busiest travel weekends of the year, the numbers are sobering:
Last Independence Day weekend, drivers were paying just $2.95 a gallon for gas, about $1.15 less than today.
Oil prices are up more than 50 percent since the start of the year. Prices rose by a similar amount in 2007 but it took almost the entire year for them to...