If you are thinking about taking a road trip this summer you might need to reevaluate how much it will cost you.

Prices for a gallon of gas across the US have gone up about 30 cents in the last month and while it’s much lower than the $4.00 prices we saw last year it makes you wonder how high they'll get during the busy summer travel season.

Diane Schwenke with the Grand Junction Chamber of Commerce says drivers aren’t the only ones surprised by the climb in prices at the pump, “We actually have some economists that are surprised at where gas prices are going right now.”

The current price of about $2.60 for a gallon of regular is far from the four bucks we saw last summer but with prices up about 16% in the last month it's enough to force some to reevaluate their travel plans, “It's ridiculous because just a couple of months ago it was like 2-20, it's just stopping me from going the places I would like to go,” said one driver.

Other drivers say although it's not ideal they plan to hit the road anyway, “We're still going to go out to the ball parks and see family, I don't think it will stop us but it's a bummer.

Monday marks the 48th day in a row that gas prices have gone up across the u-s and it leaves us wondering, why the spike? Schwenke says there are multiple factors that play into how much we pay per gallon, “We could be seeing some speculation in the market place that combined with the fact that the crude prices have gone up along with the traditional kind of summer increases that we tend to see are probably what is being reflected at the pump.

And as our nation's economy tries to recover Schwenke says higher gas prices could really slow the progress, “There are some economists that are predicting that gas going up could hinder an economic recovery because people are spending their money on gas and not on the shoes and clothes and more types of disposable income activities.”

So try to enjoy the $2.60 range right now because we don't know where prices will go but it will most likely be up in the near future.