TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

As many families take off on road trips over the long holiday weekend, more than a few could suffer a little sticker shock filling up at the gas pumps.

The national average for a gallon of gas hit $3.523 last week, the U.S. Energy Information Administration said. That's up 4.1 cents from the previous week.

The average for California was $3.882.

It's normal for gas prices to spike over long holiday weekends, and prices always pick up as summer approaches.

What's unusual this year is how early that seasonal increase is beginning.

The national average for regular unleaded gasoline has risen above $3.50 a gallon only two other times -- in 2008 and 2011, but then not until April and March, respectively.

Prices jumping this high in February could be an omen for really expensive fuel this summer, some analysts warn.

"We're probably going to get pretty darn close to $4 a gallon," said Denton Cinquergrana, West Coast markets editor for the Oil Price Information Service. "Several cities in California already are there."

In Bakersfield, regular gas was $3.916 a gallon on average as of Friday, according to AAA's Daily Fuel Gauge Report. That's compared with $3.996 in Los Angeles-Long Beach, $3.992 in San Diego and $4.006 in San Francisco.

"We're about 45 cents higher in price than we were this time last year going into the spring months where we typically get some of those double-digit increases," said AAA spokeswoman Marie Montgomery. "That's not a good sign."

A lot of forces are combining to drive up gas prices, not least of which is political turmoil among key producer states in the Middle East.

Then, too, a number of large refineries have been taken off line because gas prices have not yet caught up with the jump in oil prices. With profit margins razor thin, it simply doesn't make economic sense to operate them, industry observers say.

A barrel of West Texas Intermediate crude oil was listed at $102.31 on Thursday, up $2.47 a barrel from a week earlier.

Filling her silver GMC Sierra at the Rosedale location of Costco on Friday, Michelle Gillaspie, 45, said she doesn't even look at prices anymore. There's nothing she can do about it, and it just upsets her, she said.

But the family has changed its behavior a little to accommodate prices.

"We don't go camping like we used to," Gillaspie said.

And her husband gave her the gas guzzling truck to drive because she has a much shorter daily commute. "My husband drives 100 miles every day," she said. "Now he takes the Honda."

Lajuana Van Horn, 80, stopped to fill up her Ford Expedition.

Van Horn is retired, she said, so "fortunately we don't have to drive much. We're only out today because he had to get a haircut," she said, nodding toward her husband.

But they've cut down on road trips.

"My daughter is in the Bay Area and we usually try to get up there to see the kids' sports and things. We haven't been able to do that," Van Horn said.

But Tony Plaza, 68, said he's not going to let gas prices stop him from driving to the coast regularly in his Winnebago, which takes about 40 gallons to fill up and gets a whopping nine miles to the gallon.

"We buy these things to use them and enjoy them," he said, shrugging. "If you don't use them, you don't enjoy them, and even with all the gas I'm buying now, it's still cheaper than getting a hotel over there."