(Radio Iowa) – The busy summer travel season is entering its final weeks and gasoline prices are starting to fall in Iowa. Brian Ortner, at Triple-A-Iowa, says crude oil prices dropped last week to around 64-dollars a barrel, as gas prices came down in the state by about a nickel a gallon. “So we should see those prices continue to build in the direction of downward rather than upward,” Ortner says. Triple-A reports gas prices in Iowa are now averaging 2-89 a gallon, which is down a dime in the past month, and projections show prices should keep gradually falling.

“The larger road trips that people do over the summer, the vacations are slowing down because that back-to-school phrase is coming back very, very soon,” Ortner says, “and we typically see demand for fuel go down, which in turn decreases prices a little bit.” He notes Labor Day is just three weeks away now. “We’re still in the midst — for at least the remainder of this month — hurricane season, which has been relatively quiet for this year,” Ortner says, “and then also on the international scale, we have to keep an eye on the things that are happening across the world that could have an impact, but for now, what we’re seeing is prices should be easing back a little bit.”

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While Iowa’s gas is averaging two-89 a gallon, Triple-A shows the national average is much higher at three-13.