Another option is to swap out the crankset with one that will yield a lower range of gears. For under $200, you could replace your compact double crankset and bottom bracket with a Sugino XD2 wide double crankset (26/40T), and lower your whole gear range (at the expense of losing some top end). The crankset requires a square taper BB too, but if you are replacing the cranks anyways, its not a huge job.

The advantage is that you could have a dual-purpose bike, depending on the drive train you install.

I use this approach on my cross bike for road touring (with a 32T cassette), and it has worked very well for me.