According to this site, yes:
Lowest currently at $3.01, highest in recent days $3.30.
I’ve read other posters complaining about the $2-something gas prices in their cities, and all I can think is You lucky bastards. 
It’s been at $3.50ish in SoCal for a few months now, too.
My one trip to Hawaii we drove through the saddle between Mauna Loa and Mauna Kea. It looked like Montana…grass, pine trees, cattle ranches. Serious cultural/geographic whiplash.
Hawaii is so diverse, because every change in elevation causes a change in ecology. Different sides of islands are different because the winds tend to blow from one side or the other, so one side can be rainy and humid, the other side dry. And then you’ve got volcanoes, lava fields, coral reefs, and so forth. Drive 30 minutes on the Big Island and it’s like visiting 4 or 5 different planets.
About the temperature: I went to Hawaii in July of 1991, to see the solar eclipse. I had been living in NYC at the time, and everyone said I was crazy to go to Hawaii in the summer, with all the heat.
Well, the temperatures in Hawaii were in the 70s and 80s, with a lovely breeze. When I got back to New York, it turned out that I missed a blistering hot 100+ heat wave.
Yes, that’s the sort of humidity we get in Thailand. I honestly don’t remember it being humid in Hawaii when we lived there, or even on our return trip two years ago. It always felt great. I think the breezes may be the answer.
Another thing about Hawaii we miss: our daily rainbows. It rained a bit just about every day to some extent on the mountains lining Honolulu, so we saw rainbows almost every day.
My impression of Honolulu, anyway, is that it was a very seedy, commercial, and downtrodden city. Once you got away from the touristy areas (which were very nice) it wasn’t much different from the less impressive parts of Jacksonville or Little Rock.
Of course, I’ve only seen Honolulu and can’t speak for any other part of the islands. I didn’t have a chance to see the nice parts.
I was certainly aware of the underside, as I volunteered to work needle exchange on Hotel Street for a year and a half! It didn’t get much seedier than that. But still, living in the Manoa Valley was great. I’d rate Honolulu as a whole a cut above any other US city I’ve seen. You just have to know where to go.
Main impressions:
It’s quite beautiful, although the big lava flows on the Big Island get old fast. They’re kind of a moonscape. And very hot, since the lava’s black. And aa, at least, is quite sharp. A bitch to walk on.
The volcanoes themselves are quite interesting, though. Take a walk through a lava tube. Also, walking through the Kilauea crater is quite something.
There are little or no native plants there. Everything was introduced from the outside, and the native species were overrun. Looks nice, but it’s a very stressed environment.
The place is full of mongooses (mongeese), another introduced species. They were brought in to control the rats. Unfortunately, rats are mainly nocturnal, while mongooses are diurnal, so they don’t meet up. They look kind of like a big rat, and they run carrying their tails straight out behind.
The big island is quite poor, overall. Maui seems a bit richer (lots of tourist stuff, lower native population, as far as I could tell). I wasn’t too impressed with Honolulu. Waikiki is an outrageously crowded little beach. You can ride the waves in forever, though, which is fun. There are a lot of rich Japanese tourists. The road from Waikiki has got a gazillion high-priced shops. I’ve never seen so many designer purses in one place.
On all the beaches I went to, the sand didn’t go very far out, then you were on rocks. Ouch.
Those pretty little lakes with the waterfalls going into them are not as pleasant as they seem in pictures. I can’t quite remember why.
I ran into a number of natives who had a real problem with tourists. They could be quite rude. Overall, though, it didn’t seem that much different from the rest of the states as far as how people relate. Of course, the people in the tourist industry were quite nice.
The drive to the top of Haleakala (sp) is worth it.
I visited as a tourist at a resort, so I can’t speak for many areas outside of it. I have to admit, though, that the Honolulu Airport was the most beautiful I’ve ever seen, and I’ve seen a lot of them. The garden area in the middle of the airport was a wonderful surprise.
We like the airport, too. Very pretty. But its location is in the midst of some sort of industrial park.
If we ever live in Hawaii again, it would probably be Honolulu. I’m very much a city guy. Thoroughly enjoyed the place. Another thing was I had a good bicycle and rode it everywhere. Honolulu is a great bicycle city.
It’s true we have practically perfect weather, I was just saying that on those rare days when the trades die, if the weather is hot and humidity high, it can be awful.
Looking at Honolulu from the industrial part by Nimitz across to Kaimuki, those are some of the oldest parts and for a lot of people not their first choice for living arrangements. With those the parts that look seedy are generally only those that front the main streets. Get into the heart of Kaimuki and it’s much nicer then what you might think by driving down Kapiolani.
Most people want to live in the valleys and ridges like Manoa valley, Tantalus, St. Louis Heights, etc. As I understand even places like Kalihi which have a bad rep for the town part the valley part is still very nice. Valleys and ridges are almost exclusively residential houses and especially for the ridges they are all fairly expensive neighborhoods. Even more people who work in Honolulu choose to live further out in places like Kailua, Mililani, the other side of Pearl Harbor, Hawaii Kai and tons of other neighborhoods.
The biggest change right now is the surge of highrise luxury condominiums. There’s probably been about 20 built within the last 5 years and they keep going up. All within the main part of Honolulu. It’s really changing the face of the city.
The main thing that has amazed me after many visits to the islands is how different each island is from each other. Between Maui, Kauai, and Oahu that I’ve been to so far they are each amazingly different from each other. The only downside lately is that Maui has been getting a lot more built up, which has kinda hurt the laid-back feel it used to have.
polygoose
Brian
You’d think it would be mongeese, but American Heritage Dictionary specifies the plural is “mongooses.”