Friday, August 7, 2009

Driving....

I hate it.

I mean, it's fun to do for short amounts of time. It's fun to do when you're driving a stolen car, cease obeying traffic laws, and ....... um....never mind, forget I said that.

But anything over 2 hours is just plain boring.

Especially when 9/10 of the trip looks like this....



And once you hit the 10-12 hour mark, it's "gouge my eyeballs out with a spoon" time.

A couple weekends ago, we drove down to Amarillo, TX.

The ride down was completely occupied with...a) fighting the FM transmitter for the iPod, so our music wasn't invaded by static b) watching the scenery go by, and by, and by c) snacking d) consuming caffeine e) snacking f) watching cattle drives block our path g) sudoku...all with the added benefit of being fresh and awake.

The ride back was completely occupied with a) audio books b) napping c) magazines d) snacking e) caffeine f) snacking g) caffeine h) caffeine.

Unfortunately, we get to do it again next week.

Does anybody out there in blogland have any suggestions for passing the time during a 12 hour (each way) car trip?

And mortgaging my house for plane tickets isn't an option.

Selling a kidney for plane tickets - maybe.

I mean, I have two...and only need one....right?



Photo Source

5 comments:

MJenks said...

I'm currently reading "In a Sunburned Country" by Bill Bryson. He drives around in Australia. A lot. He describes scenes like this. A lot.

Taking a page from his book (pun intended, sorry), you could listen to Cricket on the radio.

Nej said...

That book is sitting near the top of my "to be read" pile. I've slowly been collecting them from my favorite used book store here and there. I've read A Walk in the Woods, am reading The Lost Continent, and have three or so others pending. :-)

So far, best audio books for traveling...Carl Hiaasen. Dude's got a twisted funny brain.

Puns are my FAVORITE. Never apologize for a pun!!

Unless it's a bad one of course.

But, by nature, aren't they all bad?

OK, forget what I just said, never apologize for a pun...ever! :-)

Badass Geek said...

I don't mind a long drive in the car, so long as I am comfortable behind the wheel.

I've got to have music, though. Got to have it.

Nej said...

@ Badass - If I'm not driving, I'm sleeping. I can't help it. It takes loads of caffeine and every ounce of willpower I have to stay awake. :-)

But, I did load up the new iPod with every song in my iTunes library. I need to take some time this weekend to sit down and new music to download. Fill that puppy up. :-)

MJenks said...

If you have other books of his to read, I'd recommend those before Sunburned Country. This is firmly on the "meh" pile.