Car Trip

"Mommie tricked me. We have to DRIVE 12 hours to Yellowstone from Seattle."
My sister has an aversion to long car trips ever since our epic 12+ hour trips from Kansas to Colorado or New Mexico growing up. But growing up in the midwest, to get anywhere fun you had to drive at least 12 hours and a lot of those hours would be spent cruising through western Kansas where there would be endless horizon and fields of wheat. I loved seeing the rain in the distance, and at night leaning my head on the window to look at the stars. We'd keep our eyes peeled for the first mesa, which would signal we were at least getting close to the mountains. But that hardly occupies hours of cramped car ride. To entertain ourselves, we would pack our travel bags which included cray pas and paper, Barbies and our Jem doll, little forest creatures branded as Mapletown, books, tapes and our red tape recorders and headsets. I would listen to The Cars Greatest Hits and the We Are The World soundtrack over and over. We played Art Rummy, with my mom playing her hand from the driver's seat and Liz passing her cards to the front with her toes. We'd pack our little Datsun hatchback full of luggage and snacks and we all brought our pillows.
My mom liked to drive with minimal stops, but we'd occasionally stop by the side of the road for a picnic of Cokes, Vienna Sausages, saltines, olives and cheese. To keep our appetite at bay while driving, we had beef jerky (I haven't had a Vienna sausage OR beef jerky in years...and don't intend to) and would get Dairy Queen Blizzards. Our vacations were often taken on my birthday so I'd get to pick where to stop for dinner (Long John Silver's was a good choice!). If we were in Buena Vista, CO for either mine or my sister's birthday, my mom would decorate the cabin with streamers and get a cake from the local bakery.
I don't remember a lot of fighting in the car but I'm sure it must have happened. I know Liz and I would take turns riding in the front seat but on at least one occasion our cousins complained to my uncle about "Liz pinching in the back seat". She remembers this differently. If our dog Char came with us, we liked to have her situated between us, but Char would prefer to have her head in one of our laps. Whoever got her tail obviously got the "bad end" so we would each campaign to get her head (with her animated eyes and soft ears).
I had to miss the family vacation this year, but reminisced with my mom and Liz about our old car trips. Maybe because I wasn't there to pester her or maybe because we have more patience as adults but Liz said, "Somehow driving to OKC from Wichita was longer than driving from Seattle to Yellowstone." I wish I had gone.

NPR ran a story about car games pre-dvd player, which prompted these memories. The story is great, but the comments are priceless!