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[LadyFirelyght]

On Monday I will be moving to Seattle, and unfortunately I will be driving there with my husband, parents, and older brother. It's over 2000 miles from here to there and will probably take us at least 4 days. Any recommendations for things I can do in the car? Music I should *ahem* acquire? Places to see? C'mon people, I'm on a time crunch! 

[RedLion]

As far as music choice goes...

While it might not be to your tastes, Bruce Springsteen's albums "The Wild, The Innocent and The E Street Shuffle" and "Born To Run" are the quintissential "road trip/travel/spring/summer/long open road" albums.

[rancidhooligan]

Well, Bill Bryson books on tape are pretty good for long road trips.  Any of the Harry Potter books on tape are outstanding.  When I go on road trips I usually take a few Car Talk podcasts I've burned to CD.

And I don't think you can go wrong with The Magnetic Fields 69 Love Songs which should give you quite a bit of music.

The Ramones Anthology is great and anything by the Slackers is good, IMHO, but I know a lot of people don't like ska.  (And I'm not talking about Aquabats or Less Than Jake "ska," I'm talking about music made by people who like traditional reggae and ska.)

[Mako]

interesting, Ill be moving to Seattle in about 4 months, because im heading off to college, but it is impossible for me to take a roadtrip there on account of living currently in Japan. the only road im familiar with is the road between washington and chicago, lots of cool places, youve got mount rushmore, Devil's tower, and the badlands. very cool places to see if thats where youre headed through.

[Lines]

Bring a pillow with you in the car, because you will get bored and may or may not fall asleep more than once. (I do when I'm not driving.)

As for music, I don't know if you're talking about using CDs or mp3s, but I usually make a playlist if I'm just going to listen to my own music of things that are peppy and fun for road trips. (I wouldn't suggest this for CDs, though, because you actually have to make them.) Or just have a booklet of all your favorite cds in the car with you. And by all, I mean ALL. 4 days is a LOT of music.

I don't know how much music you have, but maybe even just putting them in alphabetical order and then listening to them one by one. I have enough for over 19 days, but if I were to just trim it down to the most important albums, I can see it shrinking a considerable bit.

[ThePQ4]

Get some books on tape --I concur with the Harry Potter suggestion. Also really good, that everyone can enjoy, Janet Evanovich's Stephanie Plum books, if you've never read them (One For The Money is the first book) --The series is pretty hilarious.

Otherwise, get a portable DVD player for in the car and you can watch movies or something too.

[karl gambolputty...]

I like to load up my iPod with podcasts before going on a long trip.  They're free, and pretty entertaining if you pick them right (NPR).  Fresh Air and Wait Wait... are great for driving.

[rancidhooligan]

Back in the day, when all I had was a stock Honda AM/FM radio with cassette but the tape player was broken I'd go to NPR.com and get the frequencies for all the NPR stations along my route.  That way I always had NPR while I drove.

LadyFirelyght it doesn't seem like that's a problem for you, though.  I thought it might help someone else, however.

Otherwise, get a portable DVD player for in the car and you can watch movies or something too.

I don't know about this.  I mean, Lemmy knows when I was a kid I would have liked nothing more than a portable DVD player and an entire season of The A-Team but we didn't have that stuff back in the 80s.  I think watching television on a road trip is the worst thing you can do.  Play roadkill bingo, or "I Spy," or look at the landscapes, or check out the other cars.  Go to all the weird tourist traps along the way.  "Deepest Cavern in Idaho," "Largest Ceramic Lawn Gnome in the West," "The Walt Whitman Once Stopped To Use The Bathroom Here Motel," etc.

If you're taking a 2000 mile road trip, you'd better show up in Seattle with some cheesy snow globes from the stuff you saw along the way.

[Boro_Bandito]

Card games, mental clue, license plate abc's, I spy, and then just slowly kill each other with nagging for the other 3 days, 23 hours you have left.

[SeanBateman]

Smoke a lot of cigarettes, everyone but the driver should get drunk, and you should probably smoke a ton of weed too.

Don't bring hard drugs because you're fucked if you get caught with those crossing state lines.

[jhocking]

parents

oh god smoking weed with my mom *shudder*