Inflation here? gas/grocery prices just continue to climb

That's how they make you get used to the pain. I have a feeling we will never see gas under $3 for a least a couple of years. Maybe never again.
I don’t know - it got pretty high during the Iraq stuff but got super low again. Gas is one of those things that really sticks to supply and demand (with a lot of help from devious manipulation from the ME). There are a lot of other things that won’t go down when things recover though.