Angus MacRae/Flickr Creative Commons
Let’s face it: the RV life is a grand one, but even the most gung-ho of us experience that creeping boredom on a long trip. Especially on those long road trips over routes we’ve traveled many times. How many times can you ask yourself, “Hey, isn’t that restaurant new?” or “WHEN are they going to finish working on that exit?” before you just couldn’t care less? With the advent of smart phones, surfing the net becomes a very dangerous yet alluring distraction. Your passenger will fuss at you and your stock response of “I’m just using the map” doesn’t make it any less dangerous, so today I thought we could talk about how to keep your mind occupied while the long straight road whizzes by.
If you’re driving by yourself and you can’t find anything good on the FM, don’t forget there is an AM side! You can hear some of the coolest local radio shows on the AM dial and it’ll really give you a taste or flavor of the region. I remember driving through the painted desert portion of AZ on I-40 heading for New Mexico and hearing the Navajo Radio station on 660. It was so interesting to hear the Navajo language spoken and hear the English words scattered throughout…for example, George Strait in Navajo is: George Strait.
All those old-school road trip games will come into play as well, but we’ve covered those in previous blogs. So a newer suggestion is to do Road Math! For example let’s say you’re in Eastern New Mexico on Hwy 285, add up the numbers 2, 8, and 5 and you get 10. Diesel costs $3.27? Add it up! You get 12! A tractor trailer goes by with the ID# 25703, it adds up to 17. It really works well when you start to get a little tired and dozy in the heat.