I Spy with my Little Eye

November 14, 2006 4:00 AM

How can a man, woman and puppy have an interesting 13 hour road trip along I-20?

My husband and I live in Georgia (Atlanta), but his family lives in Texas (DFW). At least once a year we drive back there as it is ridiculously cheaper than flying and renting a car. The drive takes about 13 hours along I-20. It's always an extremely boring drive as we are intimately familiar with the scenery. Is there anything we can do to make the road trip a little more interesting? We'll also be traveling with our Maltese (little dog) so stopping anywhere inside for extended periods of time is out of the question. I'm looking either for interesting off-the-highway detours that would be dog friendly or interesting ways to pass the time on such a long road trip.

On top of this, I have the extra added challenge of keeping my husband awake while I'm driving. Since he isn't being entertained, he shuts off like a Furby and then I have a difficult time concentrating without some sort of mental stimulation. Last year we tried audiobooks, but I can't concentrate on long stories like that. I most enjoy non-political radio talk shows, but those are few and far between.

posted by lynda to travel & transportation (15 comments total)

This post is similar and has a lot of good suggestions, but it seems to primarily focus on a three person road trip (two people being able to interact while one person is driving). Plus, I'd really love some suggestions for places to stop off 20 since we make this journey year after year.

I've thought of getting satellite radio, but I think that's just too expensive for us to consider at this point.
posted by lynda at 4:04 AM on November 14, 2006

You could load up on this american life and put that on your mp3 player.
posted by bigmusic at 4:09 AM on November 14, 2006

Sirius Satellite Radio. Has tons of music and talk channels, only some of which are political. I LOVE it for long road trips. It's even more convenient than my ipod because I don't have to remember to fill it up before leaving... and Sirius satisfies my NPR addiction, too.
posted by paschke at 4:22 AM on November 14, 2006

Podcasts. Even the ones with extra long (1+ hours) episodes don't necessarily require your full and complete attention. An iPod is your friend on long road trips.
posted by mcwetboy at 5:07 AM on November 14, 2006

Man, have I made this trip many times-from 1968 through 2004. I live a couple of hours east of you on I-20 and I too have relatives in DFW. One stopping point that comes to mind is the battlefield in Vicksburg, if you are into history. It is a large open park and has a nice self-guided driving tour. It is also easy to get to from the interstate. I also agree with the satellite radio; you say it costs too much, but it is getting cheaper and it probably costs less than the gas you will use driving there and back. If it is your sort of thing there is also the Nascar museum in Talladega, but that is probably a little to close to stop and not dog-friendly anyway. When I have a little time I will try to find more suggestions, but my general attitude when making that trip is to grit my teeth and get it over with.
posted by TedW at 5:17 AM on November 14, 2006

Language tapes.

Share sex fantasies. (You'll have something interesting to do when you finally stop, too!)

Stop at NO CHAIN RESTAURANTS! Get a copy of 'Eat your way across America'. ( http://www.amazon.com/Eat-Your-Way-Across-USA/dp/0553067117 ) Use it to guide your selection of off-the-beaten path restaurants.

Old Prarie Home Companion tapes are good.

Mix tapes/CDs of fave tunes...

AM Radio. No really, it's full of idiots and religious fruitcakes (sorry for the redundancy) but is endlessly entertaining if you can stomach it. At night, you can listen to stations from all over North America (they fade in and out, of course).

Bird watch. I count raptors.

Dodge moose. Ok, I live in Vermont, so this is not practical. But since you are going to Texas, you can dodge jackasses. (We fought a war once with Mexico about who could keep Texas, and we lost.)

Last item... somewhere in Alabama, when hubby is snoozing, take a right turn on a random North bound interstate and drive for 4 hours. That'll spice things up when he awakens!

Have fun and drive carefully!
posted by FauxScot at 6:18 AM on November 14, 2006

Thanks for the suggestions so far! Unfortunately, MP3s are primarily out. We both have the ipod shuffle, but we've never been able to find a radio tuner for it or anything so we can play it through the car stereo. The CD player is old, so it doesn't play MP3s and converting them to regular CD format takes up wayyyy too many CDs (something like 1.5 podcasts per CD). We definitely cannot afford an iPod that something like iTrip supports anytime soon.

We'll probably look closer into satellite, but we don't have a lot of extra money for this trip. (We're staying with his parents; gas for the entire trip will be somewhere around $300 and we're expecting to spend about $200 on food.) Any extra money we have we'd rather save for spending while we're there.

We need to remember to bring our CB Radio since it's always great fun listening to the truckers whine.
posted by lynda at 6:52 AM on November 14, 2006

This is very specific, but we enjoy CDs of the BBC radio panel show Just a Minute (look here on Amazon, for instance -- can be good for staying awake on long drives. It's a bit like improv (e.g., Whose Line is it Anyway?) and usually very funny.
posted by sueinnyc at 7:23 AM on November 14, 2006

Another suggestion is to get Google Earth, turn on the layers for parks and tourist attractions, and fly over your route, looking for things that might be worth stopping for. There seem to be a number of parks and museums near the interstate, particularly in towns such as Birmingham, Tuscaloosa, Meridian, Jackson, and Shreveport. Tyler, TX is known for roses, so there may be something worth stopping for there if you are interested in flowers. It might be too far off the interstate, though. Another resource is state welcome centers, which in addition to free maps and often information on road construction, will have fliers/discount coupons for various attractions and information for any local festivals/fairs that might be hapopening and might be fun to go to for an hour or two. The welcome centers also provide room for your dog to get out and mover around and have picnic areas if you want to avoid eating out. If I remember correctly TX has a new one on I-20 that is pretty nice.
posted by TedW at 7:59 AM on November 14, 2006

Sorta OT, but there are many FM transmitters out there that you can buy that will transmit from any mp3 player with a headphone jack. A quick look at BestBuy found this, for instance. There are probably dozens more available if you look. (I know I personally own a cheapie $29 one that works relatively well).

Get one of those, load up the shuffle with podcasts, and you're good to roll!
posted by cgg at 8:06 AM on November 14, 2006

following cgg's suggestion, a tape-deck adapter that will work for the shuffle (or anything else with a headphone jack) sells for $10-$15 at places like Target, Wal-Mart, RadioShack. Quality is not great, but it's about as good as FM transmitters, so it's an option if you want to put stuff on the shuffle.

This assumes that your car has a tapedeck, which you don't say one way or another. Though it does have a CD player, so maybe you'll be in luck.

Between Atlanta and Augusta (Madison, GA) is the Bruce Weiner Microcar Museum. Too bad it's 90 miles out of your way to DFW.
posted by zpousman at 10:45 AM on November 14, 2006

If a tape-deck adapter won't work, maybe you can find a small iPod amplifier that can be powered by the car.
posted by amtho at 11:41 AM on November 14, 2006

The truck doesn't have a tape deck, but I do appreciate the info about cheap FM transmitters that simply work by being plugged into the headphone jack! I'll have to look into that.
posted by lynda at 1:23 PM on November 14, 2006

Traveling with a Maltese? Order some Maltese language tapes... but seriously, I actually did use language tapes on a long auto trip many years back, but I intended to use the language to impress a girl at my destination. I didn't get the girl, but I did get an introduction to Gaelic while avoiding noxious C&W radio stations along the way.
posted by zaelic at 4:02 PM on November 14, 2006

Radio Baseball, kind of like "Name That Tune" with totally different scoring.
posted by soundslikeobiwan at 9:56 AM on November 16, 2006