PORTLAND (AP) - Oregon gasoline prices are edging toward $3 a gallon, and have climbed above that at a handful of stations, AAA Oregon reported Tuesday.

It said the average price has topped $3 a gallon in Ashland, popular with playgoers from California who already pay a statewide average of $3.27.

AAA's weekly check of Oregon gasoline prices showed a statewide average of $2.95 a gallon, with the Portland area a penny lower and the Springfield-Eugene area at an average of $2.98 a gallon.

The national average is $2.70, and Oregon has the fifth-highest average price in the nation, AAA said.

The statewide average as calculated by the AAA is up 35 cents from a month ago and 44 cents from a year ago.

It is still below the record average, $3.11 a gallon on May 28, right before the summer driving season last year.

Still, the recent price increase has hit home.

Elliott Eki, the public affairs director at AAA who compiles the weekly gasoline-price report, said he took his pickup and a five-gallon gasoline can to the filling station this weekend and left, taken aback, $60 lighter.

The gasoline in the can was for his lawn mower, he said, and added: “I think I'm going to let that lawn grow wild this year.”