It’s like this folks, on road trips my husband loves to drive and hates to be a passenger.  I, on the other hand, prefer not to drive and rather enjoy being a passenger. A match made in heaven I tell you. In our more than 18 years together and 70,000+ miles of road trips I have driven for exactly 3 hours.  Yes, a scant 200 miles or so.  Wanna know why I drove those?  For 2 hours my husband was still recovering from food poisoning and if it weren’t for the lake-effect snow we were trying to stay ahead of, we would have camped out at the hotel for another day.  The other hour was because he was so tired he couldn’t keep his eyes open.  Kansas is kind of boring to drive through folks, even if the reward at the end is Colorado. I swear I-70 is basically just 450 miles of grain.  Many thanks for feeding the country though, we genuinely appreciate your hard work!

Therefore I am the best darn road trip passenger you have ever seen. It works out for us.  I essentially wait on him hand and foot which he loves because I never do so at home, unless he is just this side of hospital sick.  In return he drives me all over the place to visit friends and family and go on adventures.

While he drives I navigate, reroute us around traffic jams, get snacks, open water and soda, manage the music, manage our munchkin (though she is pretty self sufficient now and almost as tall as me at 11 years old), answer the phone, text responses for him, call for reservations or with travel updates to our family members or Airbnb hosts.  I’ve even listened to audiobooks (reading in the car makes me ill) and worked on craft projects to occupy myself in city traffic so he can concentrate and I can keep from looking for the brake on my side of the car every 30 seconds.  (I never said I didn’t have control issues, people, just that I am better at being a passenger than my partner in crime.) At least once during each trip I sing loudly and purposefully off-key which he doesn’t like to admit he finds funny. Lately our munchkin does too.  It’s hysterical. (In case you are wondering, we sing “On the Road Again.”)

Mainly we talk, a lot.  We plan for the trip, for life after the trip and we catch up on all of the funny little things that have happened over the last few months that our over-scheduled lives have kept us from mentioning to each other.  My goal is to keep him well-fed, entertained and awake. Such people are better and safer drivers. That’s good for me, him, our daughter and anyone who happens to be on the road with us.

Happy travels!