The Surprise Lady Travels

The family car trip. There is something nostalgic about loading the brood into the family-truckster, taking a long road trip and seeing the sights. The reality is much less bucolic. The kids are often either bored to death or plugged into one to three electronic devices. The parents are often counting the miles until the next stop and someone in the car really has to go!

When I was young my family would go on car trips and as this was before the iPod, the GameBoy, the DS and even the Walkman, my brother and I would go back and forth between staring blankly out the window and finding something to pick on each other about. Like many other families we tried to play car games.

One favorite was the license plate game. The goal is to see how many different states you could find based on the license plates of vehicles you see. This is a pretty low impact game that everyone can play and on a recent driving trip to, around and from Yellowstone we played it. We found every state (yes, even Hawaii), federal plates, Native American reservation, Washington DC, five provinces in Canada, two states in Mexico and one plate from France.

Another game is the alphabet game. Rotating turns, you must find the letter out in the real world on signs, license plates and other cars. Pitty you if you receive a Q or J. X is usually really easy to find with the word “exit” appearing frequently.

The last game we often played was the game of Initials. One person gives the initials of a person or fictional character and there others take turns asking yes/no questions to narrow it down. Players can guess in place of a question and the game can easily be narrowed down for kids (cartoon characters only, Disney characters, etc…).

The last way my parents kept us sane was with the Surprise Lady. The Surprise Lady (you guessed it, my Mom) would wait until my brother were at each other’s throats and then announce her arrival. She would then give each of us a little item to keep us entertained (coloring book, puzzle, etc…). We looked forward to her visits.

As this posts I will once again be on the road with the Surprise Lady, except this time I expect I will be doing much of the driving. I guess I won’t be expecting a Superman sticker book!

It is no surprise that this simple recipe is fantastic.

This is a very straight-forward sandwich. What makes it blog-worthy is the chipotle mayo you make.

It has a small kick to it but also comes with a creamy coolness.

Stack it up.

And eat!