Recipe for a road trip

A lot of memories are made this way.

We are family who love to travel. We may not travel big, but we do travel fairly often. We try to get one or two road trips in a year, and as the boychild only has two more years left in our house, we've got to get our fix in while we can.

You'd think after all these years that we'd have some sort of a routine down. We'd be road tripping experts or something.

Of course, if you were really thinking that, you'd be wrong.

Allow me to demonstrate:

This is how normal organized people road trip:

Pack all bags for the family in advance. Make sure, of course, that everyone has enough clean underwear and clean socks and a jacket - even if the weather calls for 90 degree temps in the middle of the desert. You know if you don't pack the jacket that it will probably pour buckets/sleet/snow.

Even if you're in the middle of the desert in the middle of the summer. Because, of course it will.

And, for the love of god you will most definitely need clean socks - especially if you are traveling into the desert, but even when you're not - especially if you have a teenage boy.

Have toiletries set out by the sink, ready to pop the toothbrushes into their covers and toss in the deodorant and daily essentials into the bag as soon as you've used them last for quick packing.

Find all charging cords, cables and ear buds, gather all iPads and Kindles and, of course, phones and put them in one place. A separate pocket or insulated pouch or something that you can easily grab and go.

Plan for and purchase a well-rounded, generally healthy snack list. Things that travel rather well without spoiling. Grapes, cucumbers, nuts, granola bars, baked crackers, maybe some hummus packets. Bottles of water. Ice packs that you've remembered to throw in the freezer. That kind of thing.

Make sure all children have things to keep them occupied, but not glued to a screen the whole time. Coloring books - but only with twisty colored pencils or maybe - if your kid is older - markers. Add some trivia puzzles, card games and imaginative playthings - dolls or cars or whatever.

Research family-friendly road trip games to keep you entertained as you traverse the never-ending landscape of Wyoming or, god forbid, fucking Kansas. Traveling through those states is like entering the Twilight Zone.

And, of course, lots of music that the whole family agrees on. Because that exists.

Which means that this is naturally how our family road-trips:

Know that there are clothes to pack, but realize the night before that half of the items you're planning on bringing are still dirty.

SHIT.

Panic slightly, then say fuck it to sorting and fill your extra-large capacity washer to over capacity with jeans and delicates and dressy clothes and stinky socks and pretty much every piece of clothing your family owns (that isn't clean, because naturally, the clean clothes are out of season) so you can get ALL THE LAUNDRY DONE RIGHT NOW.

Pray that everything will dry fully sometime before midnight, so you won't have gross mildewy clothes upon arrival.

Get distracted on your phone (damnit Facebook!) and conveniently "forget" to head to the store to stock up on foodage. Instead, pull whatever remaining snacks you have in your pantry and fridge that the locusts children haven't already eaten. If you live in a house with children or teenagers, you will probably have to sort through empty boxes, discarded wrappers, and wilted fruit to find what could be deemed as acceptable. Throw this hodgepodge of snacks into a plastic grocery sack, because you don't have enough energy to figure out where your "nice" bags are. The road trip snacks will consist of something like four old packets of fruit snacks you can't remember buying, two granola bars that fell behind the cans of corn, slices of one half of a cucumber that was left on the counter after that night's dinner (totally not slimy, so you're good), thrown in a ziplock bag. And, if you're lucky, a semi-opened bag of your favorite chips (only slightly stale). Don't include the ice packs, because your children have lost them all.

Hardened traveler advice - no matter how desperate you are, do not under any circumstances bring the fresh broccoli and cauliflower as a healthy snack option. Seriously. HARD PASS ON THAT SHIT. Believe me. You will end up regretting it for hours. Consider that the gift that keeps on giving.

Be sure you pack a water bottle or two - if you're lucky enough to find a matching lid.

Know the whole time you're scavenging for snackage that you're going to be stopping at a gas station within two hours of departing, and that you'll be stocking up on Hot Fries and Cheetos

and Twizzlers and vanilla Coke - even if you've given up crap food.

Fold previously-discussed laundry, then remember that you still have to pull the luggage from the garage. Cross your fingers against extra surprises, like mice or spiders. Silently curse living on a mountainside if you find the extra surprises. Dance a little jig should no surprises jump out at you. Shove everything into the luggage, then recruit another family member into sitting onto the suitcase so it can be zipped.

Try to find all of the toiletries. Fail miserably, except for the toothbrushes, toothpaste and deodorant. Somehow forget to pack the deodorant that you do find, which, of course, is a giant mistake if you have any other human to travel with. Realize that you'll also be spending another fortune on "travel size" options... again... when you get to your destination.

Beg, plead and barter with your children to pack their own bags o' fun. Don't worry about the electronics - mostly because they won't necessarily remember the power cords to go with them. Give up caring on whether the crayons get dropped onto the floor and mashed into the mats, only to be found a month later. Declare that your car is "kid-friendly" anyway, so really, it's not like anybody is going to notice.

Try to pack the electronics and cords

, but forget them on the kitchen counter on the way out the door. You might all have your phones, but you'll now only have one charging cord to share between four of you. Whomever the cord actually belongs to will suddenly get very possessive of said cord and forget their sharing lessons from Kindergarten.

Fall back on the traditional license plate and alphabet games, because lord knows you haven't had any time to research any alternatives. Now that your whole family have dead cell phones (sans one person, who still isn't sharing), you can't really do that from the road. And no, you can't use the Q in the license plate ahead of us so STOP CHEATING! Laugh like maniacs because despite the plea to stop cheating, everyone is and you're all now just blurting out random words.

Is it bad that I take pride in the fact that the children have memorized the lyrics and dance for this?

Take turns playing music. Sing along at loud volumes to mostly appropriate, and some - eh, not so much - not necessarily in tune or on beat or whatever, but just for the fun of it. Small arguments break out because so-and-so has chosen five songs, and what-his-name only got two songs before it went back to so-and-so. The small arguments get bigger, until finally, one or both parents yell back to DON'T EVEN BREATHE TOWARDS EACH OTHER that nobody gets to choose the music now and we have to go back to the radio.

And, after hours of forced family interaction, end up at your destination a little rumpled, a little smelly and a lot of exhausted, but full of good memories nonetheless.