{"id":200404,"date":"2026-05-23T03:12:08","date_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:12:08","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/200404\/"},"modified":"2026-05-23T03:12:08","modified_gmt":"2026-05-23T03:12:08","slug":"high-gas-prices-rainy-forecast-convince-some-lehigh-valley-families-to-opt-for-staycations-this-memorial-day-allentown-area","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/200404\/","title":{"rendered":"High gas prices, rainy forecast convince some Lehigh Valley families to opt for staycations this Memorial Day | Allentown Area"},"content":{"rendered":"<p>Millions of Americans are hitting the road and skies this Memorial Day weekend despite higher prices at the pump and a forecast filled with rain.<\/p>\n<p>AAA expects a record number of holiday travelers once again, but here in the Lehigh Valley, some people say the weather could put a damper on their plans.<\/p>\n<p>The holiday weekend is underway, but between high prices and a rocky forecast, plenty of local families are choosing to stay put.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;We&#8217;re staying home, we&#8217;re gonna have a staycation. Things are too expensive. You know, I just filled up my tank last week and I filled it up again this week and we didn&#8217;t go anywhere,&#8221; said Sandy DiLeo.<\/p>\n<p>Still, AAA says nearly 40 million people will drive this weekend.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Hopefully all the traffic is going west. Usually people leave Jersey, so hopefully there won&#8217;t be much traffic going east, so maybe we&#8217;ll luck out and be light,&#8221; said Peter Kashulines.<\/p>\n<p>And for those already on the move, the cooler unseasonable forecast is hard to ignore.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;Usually, we don&#8217;t stop burning our wood stove till the 1st of June. And it looked like a week ago we would have stopped then, but now looking next two days, you might burn a little bit next couple days,&#8221; Kashulines added.<\/p>\n<p>The wettest day of the holiday weekend will likely be Saturday. But for some, the soggy forecast isn&#8217;t changing their plans.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;I&#8217;ve had a lot of work this week, so gonna regenerate, take off, have a nice three-day weekend and then actually start back up back on Tuesday and get back to cracking again,&#8221; said Doug Kurzman. &#8220;Gonna be raining and all that, but at least still it&#8217;s good sleeping weather, so.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>Some are excited to enjoy everything the unofficial start to summer has to offer.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;My fianc\u00e9 and I are going to Hershey Park on Monday,&#8221; said Dylan.<\/p>\n<p>For others, the long weekend is less about travel and more about staying close to home with family.<\/p>\n<p>&#8220;No plans to travel, no, but we&#8217;ll be here in the rain enjoying our time at home,&#8221; said Cynthia Thomas.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Millions of Americans are hitting the road and skies this Memorial Day weekend despite higher prices at the&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":200405,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[214,119,121,120,232],"class_list":["post-200404","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-allentown","tag-_homepage_top_stories","tag-allentown","tag-allentown-headlines","tag-allentown-news","tag-allentown-area"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200404","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=200404"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/200404\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/200405"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=200404"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=200404"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-pa\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=200404"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}