I don’t know how we survived the long drive to and from Maine this week. Insane. I’ve got a few ideas on that, and wanted to share a few tips that will help you out when you pile the progeny into the car and take off for all the points on the compass… because your vacation will be an Ultimate FAIL if you come back with fewer kids than you started out with. Here are a few ideas to keep everyone IN the car as you hurdle down the highway…
Some thoughts on Long Car Drives. If you have a decent library in your town, take advantage. They have single MP3 players for books on… well, we can’t call it tape anymore can we? Digital talking books. Fabulous, especially for a chatterbox like my son. Pick up a few books on CD for the car stereo, as well, only vet the material as rated E for Everyone. Our talking book was Asimov’s The Robots of Dawn, and it turned out to be all too concerned with going to the bathroom and having sex with robots. Yeesh.
I’m not a fan of video games, but a Leapster or a DS type system is a godsend in a long trip. There. I said it. Play video games.
Simple car games are fun, too. Since we’d all seen Up (it rained A LOT during our vacation), we spent part of the ride back playing that ridiculous but fun version of “Red Car, Blue Car”, calling sign posts and clouds and all manner of weird stuff for our tallies. You can challenge older kids to make up words using the letters in license plates, with extra points if you can use them in the order they appear on the plate. With younger kids you can play Alphabet, and spot the letters in order, from A to Z.
Be patient, and take extra time to get where you’re going. If you have a long enough window of actual vacation time, why not start a day early, pick out an attraction not too far off your beaten track, and spend a night on the road? Find a motel with a pool and you’ll have happy, tired kids.
Pack special treats for everyone, from a new book you know your teen has been dying to read to a fun little car game for the younger ones, to snacks you don’t normally hand out.
Know you’ll get out of the car some day and the driving will be done, until that dreaded moment when you pack everything back up, load everyone back in, and head on down the highway towards home.
Thanks for the tips, here is another one: get the kids tired so they will sleep all the way