JessReplanted Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 We're moving to TX in 8 days or so (and we're so not ready, but that's probably a story for another thread). Due to diminished finances, my husband will be driving the rented truck and I will be driving the kids in our van... all the way to Texas. Our van doesn't even have a working CD player. My son has a DS, but we don't have a portable DVD player or anything fancy like that. How do I survive this?? :bigear: Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Parrothead Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 (edited) Does the radio work? Are they okay to read, color or otherwise entertain themselves in the van? Print out lots of songs that your eldest can lead. Like 100 bottles of root beer on the wall. Try to make it into an adventure. Stop every couple of hours for stretching breaks. Stop early in the evenings so the kids can go swim in the hotel's pool. Remember kids have been taking road trips since the first hunter gatherers starting foraging for new places to hunt and gather. Mostly the parents and kids lived through it. Edited June 24, 2012 by Parrothead Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimtaxi234 Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 http://www.crackerbarrel.com/travel/books-on-audio/ Cracker Barrell offers audio books for rental. When my children were younger, I would use a Michael's coupon, etc. and buy a large container of stickers and hand them back blank paper as often as needed. They each had a lap tray that had a storage container, so they kept things in there too. I still remember one trip where I bought a bag of marbles at the dollar store and gave it to my 5-year-old along with two plastic cups. He would roll those marbles inside his lap tray (it was about 2 inches deep if you removed the lid). My son played with the marbles for hours rolling the marbles around his Hot Wheels cars, etc. and/or pouring the marbles from cup to cup. The noise almost drove me insane, but he had the best trip and still remembers the marbles. LOL - every time we stopped on that cross country trip, a marble or two would roll out of the car. I didn't care since I only paid a dollar for the bag of marbles. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
mommaduck Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 One brother and I traveled a lot. We were expected to put together our own "busy bags". Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Swimtaxi234 Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 http://www.momsminivan.com/scavenger.html We have 3 long road trips in the next 5 weeks, so I was excited to find a few different "road trip scavenger hunt" games. Our children are older, but I think they will like it just to have something to do. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
ThisIsTheDay Posted June 24, 2012 Share Posted June 24, 2012 We're moving to TX in 8 days or so (and we're so not ready, but that's probably a story for another thread). Due to diminished finances, my husband will be driving the rented truck and I will be driving the kids in our van... all the way to Texas. Our van doesn't even have a working CD player. My son has a DS, but we don't have a portable DVD player or anything fancy like that. How do I survive this?? :bigear: Are you staying overnight at hotels along the way? With pools? I agree with the poster that suggested stopping early so the kids can swim. My parents did this with us when we were little (we're talking early 1970s here!). We'd leave early in the morning, then stop in the late afternoon. Kids would swim before and after dinner, parents would relax, and we'd all crash early, to get up and repeat the next day. If you can get them up early enough, maybe they'll spend a few hours sleeping in the car too (or that may be entirely wishful thinking on my part!). Are you planning to travel in tandem with the truck and van? Depending on your individual driving habits, you might consider driving ahead so you can stop a little earlier with the kids,or make more bathroom stops when necessary. When my kids were little, a huge treat was watching cartoons on cable tv, while eating pizza on the beds in a hotel. It gave more freedom than a car yet still kept them somewhat contained. Quote Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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