Friday, May 20, 2011

Road Trip

So last weekend my little brother graduated high school!!! (I still can't believe it) So as a family we made the long 10 hour car trip to see everyone and join in the celebrations! It was a great time with family and a great time of celebration. But... and a big BUT is the dreaded car trip. I try to bring a variety of things to keep our 3 year old daughter and 1 year old son busy, but there is only so much you can do in the confinements of a car seat. Needless to say we end up watching a lot of movies (THANK GOD for the car dvd player), eating lots of snacks, reading lots of books, and singing lots of songs. Needless to say everyone has there fair share of melt downs along the way (myself included)!

On this trip I was talking with the hubs how I have been making long trips since I was young. Unfortunately my parents lived 7 hours away from each other and visiting each parent was always an event. I have had many half way drives, Amtrak adventures, and once I was old enough - teenage road trips. Then I met my future husband at 19 and spent the next 3 years making road trips in the midst of our long distance relationship. needless to say by the time we got married I decided I was DONE driving long trips and was glad to hand off that duty to the hubs who loves to drive!

But while we were making our 10 hour drive home I started thinking of the funny things we do to pass the time, and things I have done in the past to pass the time on a long road trip. So please feel free to laugh as I share my long road trip strategies!!!


Road Trip Strategies:
As a kid:
  • Counting cows
  • singing songs
  • eating food
  • bugging my parents
  • reading books
  • asking a million questions
  • watching movies
  • sleeping (if my parents were lucky)
As a teenager
  • Counting the number of cars I pass
  • Talking to someone on the phone
  • speeding and watching out for cops (not recommended)
  • timing myself between small towns
  • But the best way to pass a long trip as a teen - I would bring a cd and pick one song that I really liked and I would listen to it over and over and over again until I could sing the whole song by heart. For fun I would often chose a rap song and bust out all the lyrics by the fourth or fifth hour. Then my accomplishment would come when I could sing the whole song with the music turned way down low. Needless to say I have a lot of crazy songs forever memorized
 As an adult and parent
  • Watch movies (prefer newer movies to hold little one's attention)
  • have snacks
  • play fun new games that are car friendly
  • count horses - Todd introduced me to a game he played as a kid where you have a competition of who can arrive at your destination with the most horses. Well I'm a sucker for a competitions so when your driving the first one to see horses and counts them gets to claim them. Then if you pass a church on your side of the car you get to double them (because they got married and had babies of course) and if you pass a cemetery on your side of the car you have to bury your horses (because they unfortunately all died) needless to say this has led to road trips ending in unnecessary cemetery drive by's  before ending our trip!
  • And long talks with my best friend and hubs in the car (often about random stuff like how to pass time in the car on road trips!)
I'm sure there are lots of fun ways families pass the time in the car if your on a trip and I hope hearing about ours gave you a little giggle!!

Love and Prayers - Dawn

1 comment:

~ Rachel said...

ACTUALLY - I didn't giggle, but LOL. I can totally see Todd driving by a cemetery on purpose just to win against you. Made me laugh.