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CHICAGO (CBS2/AP) ― Going over the river and through the woods, or down the expressway as the case may be, will cost a lot less this Thanksgiving.

As CBS 2's Joanie Lum reports, gas prices are at their lowest since March 2005, averaging only $1.98 per gallon nationally and now under the national average in Chicago.

On the Dan Ryan Expressway at 76th Street early Monday, a BP gas station posted $1.869 per gallon of regular unleaded, and a nearby Mobil station posted $189.9 per gallon. In the suburbs, the prices are even lower.

Holiday travelers are taking advantage of the situation and hitting the highway.

"I will try to go see some friends Thursday that I normally may have not been through to see because they were quite a distance away, because the gas is great," said Merita Mayberry. "So if it's $1.99 here in the city, I know downstate it's even lower, so that makes me happy."

Mayberry filled her tank for $22.87, and she was delighted. Over the summer, it cost that much for just a few gallons.

The reason is a free-fall in crude oil prices, which set staggering records in July at over $147 per barrel, but are now under $50 for the first time in 3 1/2 years.

Experts are saying the lower gas prices will likely continue to drop for the rest of the year and beyond.

"It's impossible to know exactly how low the price of gasoline will eventually go," AAA spokesman Geoff Sundstrom said Friday. "Households can, however, reasonably anticipate that lower fuel prices will be the norm throughout the rest of this year and probably into early 2009."

The Federal Highway Administration reported this week that Americans drove 10.7 billion fewer miles in September than a year ago, the 11th straight monthly decline.

But there's some evidence that motorists may be heading back to the pump in greater numbers as gasoline prices fall.

MasterCard SpendingPulse reported Tuesday that even though gas consumption last week was down 2.8 percent from a year ago, it was the smallest year-over-year decline in more than two months.

But other experts say the drop in oil prices isn't all good news.

"This is just a reflection of the poor state of the economy, and the oil market is reflecting this global slowdown," oil analyst Andy Lipow told CBS News earlier this month. Experts say OPEC charges what it can get, which isn't much in an economy with high unemployment and low consumer confidence.

As gas prices skyrocketed during the summer and drove up the prices of food and other commodities, the theory of "peak oil" began to gain credence among some consumers. The theory claims that the world's oil production either has already peaked and is now in decline, or soon will.

The pessimism, which has been the subject of Internet alarmism for several years, stems from a legendary episode in the history of petroleum geology. Back in 1956, a geologist named M. King Hubbert predicted that U.S. oil production would peak in 1970. Hubbert was correct – U.S. oil production did peak in 1970, and it has declined ever since.

Some "peak oil" adherents view the theory as an incentive to work harder on alternative energy. Others claim it's too late for that, and forecast an apocalyptic future in which industrial society and the global marketplace give way to local micro-economies with backyard farms, abandoned malls and marauding hordes.

Many "peak oil" adherents were expecting oil prices to be skyrocketing to $300 per barrel, but the opposite has happened. Now, how low prices can go is anyone's guess.

"Do not trust anyone in this market who tries to convince you that oil cannot go below $40," trader and analyst Stephen Schork said in his report Friday. "The same way no one had a clue how high prices could go last July, there is no telling how low we can go now.