Many of us remember paying nearly $4/gallon for gas a few summers ago. Not so here. At our sole gas station on campus, which we frequent about every three weeks, if that, gas is a whopping 70 cents per gallon. Our usual habit is to pull into the station on our motorbike, pop the seat to reveal the hidden gas tank, and then wait the 9.2 seconds it might take for the attendant to fill up the two-liter tank which, let's face it, is never actually empty. I'm usually embarrassed enough about spending so little that I often find myself silently praying for the tank to be suitably empty so that I can give the pump operator two riyals in order to tell him to keep the change. Never has a 70- 90% tip felt so good! Of course, this tip is a mere 25 cents or so, which may seem none too consequential to many of us but could really add up for the Indian or Pakistani citizen who most often fills our tank...

Indeed, campus is an odd juxtaposition of vehicles, from cyclists and their mechanical cousins like our small motorbike, to huge, hulking SUVs. Many families have purchased a vehicle, often large, for use while in Saudi Arabia. What many are finding, however, is that getting off campus and exploring the country is proving to be more the exception than the rule, and so most vehicles just sit, or else are driven a perfunctory quarter mile to the store or school once or twice a day, only to collect a veneer of dust in the driveway once home.

KAUST also provides a fleet of buses, and these understandably get most use before and after the school or work day, but seemingly very little use otherwise. Oddly enough, whether large or small, about the only thing most of these campus vehicles have in common is one occupant, or maybe two, much of their time in use.

So, while the U.S. continues to reel from the effects of its largest oil spill in history, with no end in sight, this part of the world, where oil is much more plentiful and vastly easier to drill, seems of another time, and certainly of a forgotten cost when it comes to anything related to purchasing energy. How will it all look in 50 years? Who can know? In the meantime, we ride our bikes, both mechanized and not, and enjoy getting around our growing campus when we need to.

Thanks for reading,

David