Family Travel Tip
I can remember my days traveling in the backseat of our stationwagon. A brother on either side of me, miles traveled and we still had miles to go. In memory of the days I’m doing a series of “Family Travel Tip” blogs based on my time, as well as my children’s time, spent traveling via car. Note: these tips are not based on any electronics devices.
A reliable way to help pass the time is to encourage a child’s imagination. To this end, find a rimmed metal cookie sheet or jelly-roll pan. The one I used must be at least 50 years old but you can find newer ones at second hand stores or a brand new on at most big-box stores. Now get a bunch of plastic letters and/or numbers (usually sold for use on refrigerators) and/or cut some shapes, figures, whatever, out of heavy cardboard and attach piece of magnetic tape (also available in rolls at big-box stores). You can also use electric tap to form tic-tac-toe or checkerboard templets.
I would store little pieces in either a little tie box or in a bag with a pull-string and pack the cookie sheet behind the backseat. Also one per child helped to keep the number of arguments down. The cookie sheet also could double as a writing surface.
I remember one day of a rather long drive, each children made up a story using the cookie sheet and put it “on” for us during lunch break. That was definitely worthy of an ice cream treat at our next gasoline stop.
