Family Car Trips

I was re-reading a book that I have,"101 Things Every Kid Should Do Growing Up," by Alecia T. Devantier. I have enjoyed seeing her ideas about what makes an ideal childhood. One of her ideas is that every kid should experience a family car trip. It got me to reminiscing about some of our family car trips.

Ever since Secret Service was small, he enjoyed all modes of transportation except the car. He admired buses, trains, always had a passion for airplanes, enjoyed a boat ride. But, get him in the car and he becomes unpleasant.

Several years ago, Science Girl had accumulated some Marriott points and since we had no plans to go out of town in the foreseeable future, we thought it would be fun to take our then 5 year old and 1 year old to a town 40 minutes away. We knew that Secret Service was not a fan of a long car ride but we prepared him for a "long" car ride, saying we were going on a vacation and would stay at a hotel. We were smug, thinking that before he could begin to complain, we'd surprise him by already being at our destination. Late on a Friday afternoon, we packed up and Science Girl eased the car onto the highway. We shared a smile as we handed Secret a book to look at, a stuffed animal to hold and put on one of his favorite music tapes.

Soon, Secret pierced the relative quiet of the car by starting the chant, known to parents everywhere. "Are we there yet?' he asked. I looked at the clock. We'd been in the car for 7 minutes.

"Where could we be?" I asked, as if he'd have a sensible answer. I turned to Science Girl, "How could we be at a vacation destination in 7 minutes?" I was indignant. To no one in particular, I exclaimed, "We couldn't even be at the airport in 7 minutes!" Of course, Secret was not interested in these details, he just continued to intermittently whine about it for the next 33 minutes.

I thought maybe 5 was too young to appreciate a family car trip so when Secret was 8, we drove with both boys from Portland, Oregon to Seattle, Washington, with a stop at Mount St. Helen. Secret had professed an interest in Mount St Helen. We handed the kids books, music, snacks. This time, because Secret was so much older and more mature, it took 20 minutes before he started to complain. Sport was 4, old enough to have something to say, and he mimicked his older brother, both complaining at various times that they were bored, hungry, thirsty, their legs were stiff or alternately numb. The author of "101 Things Every Kid Should Do Growing Up" suggests that on the family car trip, you should turn off the radio and teach your children the songs you sang on car trips when you were a kid. Science Girl and I have lovely voices and both were in choruses while growing up, but when we launched into a melodic "B-I-N-G-O" our children became mutinous. From the back seat, they started to argue with each other. I had one of those cosmic kicks in the head when I realized that without ever seeing my sisters and me as children, they were doing a dead-on impersonation of us squabbling about being on each other's side, pushing and shoving each other. Our pictures from Mount St. Helen show all of us looking grim, like we were concerned about being so close to harms' way (the volcano) but really we dreaded having to climb back into the car with each other.

This last March, we were on a family car trip from the Colorado mountains, returning to Denver. Taking another idea from "101 Things," I asked the boys (13 and 9 years old at the time) if they wanted to play license plate spelling, where you make words with the letters in the license plates of passing cars. To say they weren't interested would be a gross understatement. We were approaching an outlet mall and I signaled for Science Girl to stop so I could do a little shopping. The boys were indignant, saying that they wanted to get home as soon as possible. Secret turned to his brother, "She couldn't do this if we were in an airplane," he said. Sport agreed.