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Share Your Travel Nightmares
Jan 22 2009 by Jennifer Newman
We’ve all had nightmare road trips, trips that have left us dreading even the thought of getting into the car again. Here’s my most recent trip, and I’m looking for stories by other well-worn travelers.
Before our recent post-Christmas trip to Grandma’s house in Minnesota, my husband and I have avoided any road trips with our sons, ages 2 and 6, for more than a year. The previous trip with both children went so poorly (involving lots of crying and whining from the kids, and only slightly less from the adults) that we did everything we could to avoid another long drive with the little ones.
But the time had come to suck it up and hit the road again, and the good times started even before the car did. We hadn’t even finished loading up our Nissan Xterra when we managed to lose my 2-year-old’s winter coat in the 10 feet between the coat closet and our front door. After tearing around the house looking for it, I gave up and dug out a hand-me-down he could wear (our sitter later found his coat).
And then we hit the road for a six-hour drive that included the following lowlights:
• Driving in heavy rain and fog for the first three hours. In my family, we call this white-knuckled driving, but I have to admit it didn’t seem to faze my husband.
• Our 2-year-old refusing to nap. What a nightmare. How is it that he can fall asleep in the car when we’re 5 minutes from home, but can’t do it when we really want/need him to?
• Listening to our exhausted 2-year-old whine and cry for the final 90 minutes of the drive.
• Enduring a loud, rumbling sound our Xterra’s roof basket began making near the end of the trip whenever we hit 75 mph. It sounded like we were driving over highway rumble strips. On the plus side, once that started we couldn’t hear our fussy 2-year-old — or anything else.
I suppose the drive could have been a lot worse: The kids could have gotten sick, we could have gotten into an accident or, worse yet, we could have been stuck in an airport with two kids and thousands of other delayed travelers.
Tell us about your travel nightmares in the comments section below.
User Comments
We finally broke down and bought a portable DVD player with two screens for this trip. It was a big hit with our 6-year-old, but the 2-year-old was less than impressed.
Other than the long bout of whining, I’d say you did pretty well! So do you have a DVD player in the car? I know some parents swear by them, but I hope to avoid having to rely on one.