Wednesday, June 28, 2006

Important Safety Tips

Rather than regal you with a travelogue, detailing every little incident that occured on our road trip to Northern Idaho, I thought I’d just give you some general tips that would help you, should you ever find yourself trapped in a mini-van for 12 hours with your family.

OK, “trapped” sounds kind of harsh, but let’s be realistic, OK? That’s a long time to be in an enclosed space with anyone, never long small children who bore easily.

1) Go ahead and spend insane amounts of money on electronic gee-haws from Best Buy. You won’t regret it, until after you realize that now they can fight over who’s turn it is to choose the movie. And the one who screams loudest (Ellis), usually wins those arguments and you end up watching/hearing Toy Story 752 times between SLC and the Idaho-Montana border.

2) You can accomodate an eight year old with a queasy stomach pretty easily with an empty Big Gulp cup.

We stopped for Jonah to puke at the side of the road two times. And after that, we just tossed him “The Cup” and told him to go crazy. Eventually we moved him all the way to the front seat of the van, which helped his nausea enormously, but drove the driver (that’d be me) more than a little crazy as Jonah likes to talk about EVERYTHING he sees out the window. i.e., “Mile marker 81! We just passed mile marker 81! That means we’ll get to mile marker 82 next and then mile marker 83! Look at the cow! It’s black and white. Hey! mile marker 82! We just passed mile marker 82!” Repeat as neccessary until I have blood coming out my ears.

3) Carrie knows how to pitch a tent in the back seat.

4) If you stop every hour for something (gas, potty breaks, puking, food, etc.), add at least two hours to your travel time.

5) Twelve year old boys (that’s be Lucas) have bladders the size of raisins, apparently. Seriously, we’d stop for gas, get the boy a slurpee or whatnot and thrity minutes later (to the second, mind you!) he’d sing out, “I have to pee!” We’d tell him to hold it and ten minutes later he’d chirp out, “I still have to pee!” By then my crew of Tiny Bladders would all get into the act and we’d be at some nasty rest stop in the middle of Montana, relieving ourselves yet again.

6) You can keep yourself fairly awake during driving-hour twelve by singing slightly situationally inappropriate songs by The Smiths. If a double decker bus/Crashes into us/To die by your side/Well, the pleasure, the priviledge is mine

7) There are 2 trillion fewer bugs in the world, because they all committed suicide by flailing themselves on the windshield and front grill of our van. Seriously, wait’ll you see the pics! Bug guts splayed out all over the front of the van. Icky city. And you can’t just use the wipers and washer fluid on them. I’m going to have to sand blast the grill in order to get it clean. Mosquito entrails are seriously sticky and gooey.

8) Reha is a delightful traveling companion because she can explain all kinds of stuff about federal court civil appeals that you REALLY need to know! Who knew Federal jurisprudence could be so fascinating?! (OK, Reha didn’t actually explain the Federal Rules for Civil Procedure, but she had threatened to before we left.)

9) No one on the planet drives the speed limit. Like, ever. 55, 65, 75, these are just suggestions. Mere hints at what a safe a reasonable speed might be.

10) Don’t forget to take a look around during potty/food/puke/gas breaks. It’s a big world out there.

Jon scribbled this mess on 06/28/06 at 09:14 AM, best we can tell it fits in the category of Regular Post. This many folks had something to say about that, The permanent home of this entry is here: Link

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