Car Trips

Hubby and I love to travel by car. I suppose it's a control thing as much as anything. We can stop when we like, go when we're rarin' or take the road "less traveled by" when it beckons. When flying, not so much. And with the latest restrictions and anti-terror checks, flying has become more annoying, making going our own way much simpler.

This weekend we're heading out for a two-day trip, eight hours each way, to Connecticut and a surprise 40th party. (Hope they're not reading my blog!) The trip will be rushed as we only have two days, meaning we'll have to keep going and not stop too much. What will we do to keep busy? Here are some of the things we've done in the past:

1. Make up a list of exercises to do while driving/riding in the car, to keep that drowsy feeling from attacking. (We even had the idea to do a series of tapes on fun things to do in the car to while away the time!)
2. Make our famous nuts and bolts recipe full of good things, sure to keep our taste buds busy.
3. When traveling with kids, trade off where you sit, putting Dad in the back with one kid while Mom drives, and rotating every hour or so.
4. Buy lots of books at every stop for the kids to read. Today car tv and electronic games work, too. Alternate them.
5. Play the Quiet Game, where you all stay quiet and the one who talks first is the loser, when you get tired of hearing kiddy noise from the back seat. Usually a parent loses because we forget about the game. This is great, from the kids' point of view.
6. Bring a box from the Trivial Pursuit game and ask each other questions, with or without a win/lose strategy.
7. Using the roadmap--have a Rand-McNally or similar book of Canada and the US--one person names a state or province and the other names its capital.
8. Name songs on a theme. eg. songs with 'moon' in the title, like Moon River.
9. Wager how many trucks (or red cars or pickups) will be in the next 20 vehicles that come down the road at you--there will be LOTS of trucks!
10. Stop at the rest stations and take a brisk walk from one end to the other.
Oh! and finally,
11. When the car stops everybody pees, whether they want to or not! (This saves multiple stops.)

So we look forward to being together in the car. It's the time we do our best talking about everything. We'll take our Koolatron with some drinks and goodies, things that we can legally transport across the border, and enjoy the scenes that fly by. One will nap while the other drives, we'll settle the world crises, and by Monday we'll be back here. Away we go!