Road Trip

We're heading to Buffalo NY in less than two weeks. The Jedi has put together an awesome iternary for us, and I'm super excited about the trip. I'll share links of the places we'll be seeing later, but first...

I want to talk about the trip itself. Granted, our van has a DVD player and a Gameboy Advanced AND both the kids have a DS (well, Sweetling has a DSi)....AND Sweetling loves to read and has her own laptop. So, we could sail through the trip relying on electronics to keep everyone happy. But, I don't want to.

I want to have a family road trip.

Here are my ideas for car games. Some are my own, and some are the Jedi's, and some are borrowed from various places.

First, we are going to have The Ultimate Yellow Car Marathon Championship.
 
We play yellow car all the time....though not in its "SlugBug" version. So, why not an ultimate yellow car show down? Normally, the game of yellow car lasts only from the time we leave the house until the car is parked at our destination, or, conversly, from the time we leave whatever location until we arrive back home at our house. The first person to see and call a yellow car gets a point. Whoever has the most points when we reach our destination wins. The game starts over again when we get back in the car to go home. But for this road trip, I'll be keeping a clipboard with a running score for each family member. The game is on from the time we leave our driveway until we get back five days later. At the bottom of the clipboard, I'll make a note of any other unusual yellow objects we see during the trip. We haven't decided yet what the victor should claim as a prize.

Second, we will also be playing a State License Plate Game.

This one isn't a competition, but a co-operative game. Each of the kids will have a map of the US on their clipboard. We're going to color in a state when we spot a car sporting its license plate. The goal is to see how many states we can find and fill in. We'll bring along some field glasses for this one.

Third, I want to play some form of Landscape I Spy, or I Spy...Along the Road.

I haven't quite worked out the details yet. One possibility it to make a list from A to Z of things we think we might see....and then trade lists. Or, we could work cooperatively to spot interesting things, and then keep one master list where we jot down objects next to the appropriate letter. Hmmm....

Last, I want to print out Trip Maps for each of the kids so they can mark our journey as we move along.