Road Trip

Sing "She'll be coming around the mountain" to the tune of "Row row row your boat".  That's one of the ways mom kept us entertained on long trips. We didn't really listen to the radio, maybe because dad would've had to keep looking for stations, maybe because there was already too much noise in the car with 4 kids, maybe because the sounds of our voices was the best music to my parents ear.  I kind of feel sorry for families that plug in DVD players with headphones firmly intact on their kids heads, they are missing out on some great bonding time. 

Take off the headphones and play some car games.
Search the web, you can find tons of ideas.
This site has some free printables for highway bingo
Make your own  bingo cards or tic tac toe cards, using state license plates to create the match.

Play the ABC game, using the bill boards along the roadway, each person (or team) finds words in a sign that contain the letter A, then B, then C...you get the drift.  The person calling out the letter has tell the others what word they found with the letter in it.  A in Appleton, B in Cranberry, etc.  They can use the same word for as many letters as they can sequentially.  Let's say there's a sign for Cranberries.  A in Cranberries, B in Cranberries, C in Cranberries.  The other players cannot use the same letter in the same word.  For our example, the first one using the A in Cranberries has claimed that A and no one else can use it. First one tofind the Z wins.  For variety,  you can go backwards from Z to A, or to extend the game, get to Z, turn around and go back to A.  In our version of this game we do now allow words on moving vehicles 

Another family favorite is counting cows, this doesn't work everywhere, but in rural America it works out pretty good.  We use teams for this game, each side of the car forms a team. Each grouping of cattle equals one cow.   If you see cattle on your side of the road, you say "I have one cow".   The team that has the most cows by the end of the trip is the winner.  However, you can lose cows.  If you pass a graveyard, the team on that side of the car loses ALL of their cows.  The other team, has to call it "You lost all of your cows, graveyard", at least that's how we do it. -mpr

You'll build some great memories!
What's your favorite road trip game?