I'm a huge fan of flying. However, given the price, luggage constraints, and my dog, I've become quite familiar with the Ohio and Pennsylvania Turnpikes over the last several years.
No matter how many times I make the drive between Maryland and Michigan alone or with Jeremy, I always get cranky between hours 3 and 4 -- butt's starting to get sore from sitting, not quite time to fill up the gas tank, food I ate before the trip is wearing off, and we're not even halfway to our destination. I developed a system to make this trip more pleasant for me... and whoever is unfortunate enough to be my riding companion.
First, I like to leave between 3 and 4 am. It sounds crazy, but it has a number of benefits. At the 3/4-hour mark, the radio morning shows start. Nothing like Steve Harvey and Russ Parr to give me a boost of energy.
Also, if I happen to be driving through some podunk town that doesn't have a good radio signal, there's a more natural energy-booster that helps at this point: the sunrise.
Second, I like to bring stuff to do or things to talk about during the drive. As I mentioned earlier, even after I make it through the almost-midway-lull, there's still more than half of the trip remaining. Some people listen to the radio, a CD, or their iPod, but I've found that good old-fashioned bonding activities keep me more focused.
On this trip, I brought along The Bride and Groom Challenge, a multiple-choice quiz book that I picked up at David's Bridal when I exchanged my dress. (Most wedding places will only give you store-credit, at best, when you return a wedding dress. Yes! I have the dress. More on that in a later post.)
The book is simple: answer 100 multiple choice questions about yourself, have your fiancé(e) do the same, compare answers, sign a contract, and the winner gets the prize of his or her choice: a romantic dinner, a massage, breakfast in bed, quality time, etc.
The book goes through some pretty basic questions about your partner, including their personality, talents, childhood/teenage years, school, work, favorite things, family, social life, food, travel, daily routine, and a series of questions that start with the ominous phrase, "Has he/she ever..."
For the most part, Lu and I were pretty neck-and-neck with right answers. The questions that tripped both of us up were:
#18) "What talent do we like most in the opposite sex?" Lu picked dancing, instead of kissing (the answer I picked for him). I picked creativity, instead of earning potential (the answer that he thought I'd choose).
#28) "If he broke something in the house when he was a child, he would...?" Both of us said we would tell our parents... both of us thought the other person would try to glue it back together!
#57) "Did he/she ever cheat on an exam?" We both have cheated once when we were desperate... neither of us got caught.
In the end, I got 86 questions correct, beating Lu by a mere 2 points. More importantly, we occupied ourselves for a few hours on our long ride back to Maryland.
Normally, I go straight to bed when I get home, but we had to make a few stops first to see our photographer and to choose our wedding cake! More on these topics next....
No matter how many times I make the drive between Maryland and Michigan alone or with Jeremy, I always get cranky between hours 3 and 4 -- butt's starting to get sore from sitting, not quite time to fill up the gas tank, food I ate before the trip is wearing off, and we're not even halfway to our destination. I developed a system to make this trip more pleasant for me... and whoever is unfortunate enough to be my riding companion.
First, I like to leave between 3 and 4 am. It sounds crazy, but it has a number of benefits. At the 3/4-hour mark, the radio morning shows start. Nothing like Steve Harvey and Russ Parr to give me a boost of energy.
Also, if I happen to be driving through some podunk town that doesn't have a good radio signal, there's a more natural energy-booster that helps at this point: the sunrise.
Second, I like to bring stuff to do or things to talk about during the drive. As I mentioned earlier, even after I make it through the almost-midway-lull, there's still more than half of the trip remaining. Some people listen to the radio, a CD, or their iPod, but I've found that good old-fashioned bonding activities keep me more focused.
On this trip, I brought along The Bride and Groom Challenge, a multiple-choice quiz book that I picked up at David's Bridal when I exchanged my dress. (Most wedding places will only give you store-credit, at best, when you return a wedding dress. Yes! I have the dress. More on that in a later post.)
The book is simple: answer 100 multiple choice questions about yourself, have your fiancé(e) do the same, compare answers, sign a contract, and the winner gets the prize of his or her choice: a romantic dinner, a massage, breakfast in bed, quality time, etc.
The book goes through some pretty basic questions about your partner, including their personality, talents, childhood/teenage years, school, work, favorite things, family, social life, food, travel, daily routine, and a series of questions that start with the ominous phrase, "Has he/she ever..."
For the most part, Lu and I were pretty neck-and-neck with right answers. The questions that tripped both of us up were:
#18) "What talent do we like most in the opposite sex?" Lu picked dancing, instead of kissing (the answer I picked for him). I picked creativity, instead of earning potential (the answer that he thought I'd choose).
#28) "If he broke something in the house when he was a child, he would...?" Both of us said we would tell our parents... both of us thought the other person would try to glue it back together!
#57) "Did he/she ever cheat on an exam?" We both have cheated once when we were desperate... neither of us got caught.
In the end, I got 86 questions correct, beating Lu by a mere 2 points. More importantly, we occupied ourselves for a few hours on our long ride back to Maryland.
Normally, I go straight to bed when I get home, but we had to make a few stops first to see our photographer and to choose our wedding cake! More on these topics next....
