an expensive burger

This past weekend, my neighbor was craving an In-N-Out burger. So she and a friend drove 425 miles — from Portland, Oregon, to Redding, California — for lunch.

That’s pretty far to go for a burger — especially considering that we’ve got Burgerville, McDonalds, Red Robin, Wendy’s, Burger King, Shari’s, Newport Bay, Carl’s Jr., and Applebee’s within easy walking distance. Within biking/driving distance, you can add Sonic, Roses, Jack in the Box, McMenamins, and many more to the list.

Granted, I’m not sure I’ve ever been to In-N-Out. I don’t know how their burgers compare to the local fare here. But this got me wondering about the real cost of this burger road trip — not to mention that it would have been about a seven-hour drive each way, without stops for gas and restrooms, and not counting the time spent at the restaurant itself.

I don’t know what make/model car she and her friend took on this roadtrip, but let’s be generous and assume that it gets 25 miles to a gallon of gasoline. With a roundtrip distance of 850 miles, that’s 34 gallons of gas expended on this burger quest. Taking a rough estimate of $2.80 per gallon here in Oregon, that’s $95.20 spent in fuel.

And, with each gallon of gasoline burned producing 20 pounds of carbon dioxide, this trip to In-N-Out resulted in 680 pounds of carbon dioxide being released into the air.

That’s one expensive burger.