“Dad, do you have a charger for my phone? How about my iPad?” “Do we have the thing that charges my computer?” “Where are my headphones? Do we have all the iPads?” “Who has my headphone cable in case my batteries die?” “Can someone turn on their hot spot?” “Why is the Internet so slow?” “What’s the wifi password?” “Can I download a new game?” In case you are wondering, these are all questions that start flying around just before a road trip and shortly after starting the trip.
Is this the new normal for 2020 and beyond? I don’t know if this is a good thing or a bad thing. As we got into the car, my oldest even made the joke about herself that she was like Mary Poppins with her bag, as she pulled out iPad after iPad, handed out headphones and chargers, and snacks and waters. It really was funny to wonder what else she had in that bag; she really was the modern-day Mary Poppins.
What I am not telling you was that this was all for a one-and-a-half hour road trip to Slidell. You would have thought that we were going to the West coast, taking the Oregon trail via mule. When I was little, you grabbed some snacks and maybe some magazines, and you were headed off. We all played the alphabet game or the license plate game, and your biggest problem was talking your parents into stopping so you could go to the bathroom.
We don’t need to entertain our little ones ALL the time. Sometimes, we just need to let them stare off into nothing; let them wonder about life; and build on the excitement of going on a trip, wondering and asking, “Are we there yet?” So, next time you hit the road, try and spend some time playing the games you played on road trips.
Road Trip Pro Tip
It does not matter how old you are, buying snacks for a road trip should always look like an unsupervised nine year old was given $100 and sent into the gas station.
