While visiting friends recently, I got into a discussion about the long car trips of my youth (Philadelphia to Cincinnati, essentially, which we did most Christmases) and how we somehow managed them without DVD players, which are apparently essential in the modern minivan.
Now, this is nothing against outfitting kids with DVD players; for all I know, this may be a far better way to pass the time than whatever my sister and I did with/to each other. For instance, if my parents had been able to give us matching DVD players, they might have spared themselves a few hundred listens to our mix tape during that cross-country trip in the summer of 1981 — the tape that had "Bette Davis Eyes" and "Jessie's Girl" and "The Waiting" and "Modern Girl" and "Watching The Wheels."
(Pause for all of you to appreciate the fact that my parents listened to "Modern Girl" for a whole summer.) (Heroes, I tell you.)
But for the most part, our pastimes were pretty low-tech. I know we tracked license plates, and we definitely played various versions of "a cow is worth one point" animal-spotting. We read books, and we did puzzles, and I think reading aloud happened sometimes (though that was more of a nighttime activity — I've disclosed before that we read "Leiningen Versus The Ants" one night during that trip, and it freaked me right out). I'm sure there was also, you know, fighting. YOU'RE ON MY SIDE! was undoubtedly heard.
It made me curious about what everybody else did in the car, or what everybody else's kids do or did in the car, that doesn't involve much in the way of technology.
So I open the question to you: what's the best, worst, or most memorable low-tech entertainment you know for the back seat of a car trip?
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