Getting from here to there and back

Our family spent between 4 and 5 hours in the car together today. Luckily, as mom, I get shotgun for life. Since the kids are older, the backseat has gotten a little crowded. We're home again now, and everyone has staggered off to bed, but I've been thinking about how car trips in our family are almost always sort of fun. Not that we don't have a bit of sibling tension from time to time, or parental pleas for just a few minutes of quiet, but for the most part, we travel quite well together.

We almost always listen to podcasts from NPR. We're all addicted to the Sunday Puzzle and to Wait Wait Don't Tell Me (we love a good quiz!). Usually it starts with mom and dad calling out answers, but from time to time, one of the kids will get one first....ok, maybe more than once in a while. We like listening to see if someone will win Carl Kasell's voice on his/her home answering machine and we love hearing famous--or sort of famous--people play "Not My Job". Today the NPR podcasts finished pretty quickly and the backseat crew turned their attention to dad's iPad, each trying to claim the high score on Angry Birds (am I the only one who has never played that game?).

On the way home, podcasts over and iPad out of power, we listened to music. We've got pretty eclectic tastes, and tonight was all about staying awake for the long drive home in the dark. A little Meatloaf, some Pink Floyd, and classics like Hot Rod Lincoln and Cover of the Rolling Stone. The kids know Gloria Gaynor's "I Will Survive" and Foghat's "Slow Ride" and "I'm Yours" by Jason Mraz. Yeah, our playlists are a little....varied? We've also been known to blast a little Bohemian Rhapsody from time to time. Whatever it takes to get from here to there and back again.