Do Not Drink and Drive

Drinking and driving is one of the stupidest things you can do. Many people like to go out and drink at bars or clubs. Not everyone always plans ahead.  When you drink your brain is impaired. You may think you are ok to drive, but honestly, you aren’t. Only a couple drinks is not ok to drive. You should be completely sober.  Have a designated driver, or call a cab. If you are close to a bar, walk. There is no reason to get behind the wheel of a car when you drink. Many teens go out and get drunk and then drive. It’s not worth it. If you are embarrassed, get over it. I am going to be one of those parents that will come get Noah when he gets older if he drinks. Not that I want him to and he will be in trouble for drinking but I will still go get him so he doesn’t have to drive. When you drink and drive, you are making the choice to endanger yourself, anyone who happens to be in the car with you, and anyone on the road.  You need to make sure you don’t do it.

If you are an adult and decide to drink, be an adult and make sure you are safe about it. When I was a freshman in high school, there was a guy who I was friends with, he was in the car with some friends.  This boy played basketball, was very smart and popular. He was the model high school student.  They were driving down the road and they were hit by a drunk driver.  They were all sober.  Blake, the smart basketball player, was in a wheelchair. He couldn’t move, he couldn’t talk he was basically a shell. He passed away in 2003. If that driver would have decided not to drink and drive that night, who knows what Blake would be doing right now. He would probably be a lawyer or play for the NBA. Just because you have been lucky in the past doesn’t mean that you will be lucky anymore.  You can also get in a lot of legal trouble for drinking and driving.

Check out this post about drinking and driving

Themed Road Trips

I would love to go on themed road trips someday. I wish there was a company that offered these. I would love to go on several different ones. I would love to go on a serial killer site road trip. I am not sure why, I just find it really interesting.  I would love to go to Lizzie Borden’s house.  I know she’s not a serial killer but it would be neat. I would also like to tour Alcatraz.  I would also like to go on a movie road trip and visit different places movies were filmed.  You would be surprised where you think its filmed vs where it really is filmed.  I love movies and it would be fun to reenact scenes from my favorite movies.

I would also love to go on a history road trip. I would like to visit places that were important in the civil war or American Revolution.  I would love to take Noah to Washington DC and visit different places.  A culinary tour would be lots of fun because I love to eat. I would like to just travel all over and eat at different places that are special and vlog it. I would also like to go on different food factory tours and see how things are made. I am kind of a dork. It would be so much fun to plan all these trips out and see America too.  Noah wants to go to all the aquariums in the United States. We have made a good dent in them so far. It would be fairly easy to plan with the internet and a good GPS.  I think I will try and plan a themed road trip for next summer. I will definitely get Noah’s input and start planning and saving now.

Here’s a great post about a culinary road trip

I Want New Travel Gadgets

While when my family goes on road trips, I don’t usually allow Noah to spend time on gadgets. I do think some gadgets are great to have that serve a purpose. There are many cool gadgets out there that will help your road trip be better.  I am open to letting Noah watch movies in the backseat with a portable DVD player and headphones. However I wouldn’t want him to do it the whole trip.  We like to listen to books on tape too.  A satellite radio is a must have gadget to listen to all kinds of music. No one really plays CD’s anymore. If your child is listening to music or a movie, headphones are important if it’s something like Barney or Everything is Awesome on repeat for the fifteenth time.

 I just learned that there are car seat coolers that keep your baby cool in the car. I wish I would have known that when Noah was a baby. He was a juicy sweaty baby.  I never thought to bring a handheld vacuum cleaner in a car. That is brilliant. Noah is a messy eater. He eats a lot of cereal and crackers in the car. It would be so easy just to vacuum it out at a rest stop. Since its battery operated, you won’t need a plug.  No more soggy snacks or leaky coolers with a car cooler because you won’t need to worry about bags of ice. It really stinks when you go to fill up the cooler with ice and you find out you have none. Bags of ice are available but the ice is usually in huge chunks and it makes it hard to put in your cooler. I am going to look for these things for our next road trip and hopefully not have to worry about the cooler leaking or mountains of crumbs in the backseat.

Check out this post about Must Have Travel Gadgets