Yesterday morning (shortly after posting my John Owen post, as it happens) we bundled the family into the car and began to drive south. Far south. We are on our way to Atlanta to spend some time with my family. Yesterday we made it from Toronto all the way to almost the border between Kentucky and Tennessee. I’m writing today from a hotel that I believe is in a town called Corbin or something like that. I must have had a little too much Coke yesterday (I’m not a coffee drinker so Coke gives me my caffeine for the highway) because I didn’t sleep very well and then woke up early. I thought I’d get some writing done while the family catches up on lost sleep.

As I lay in bed last night I was thinking about how long this drive is (16 hours each way, or so) and how easy it would be to waste that entire 16 hours. I determined before we left that I was going to try to take advantage of the time and to that end packed some good audio books—Max McLean’s recording of The Pilgrim’s Progress and an audio version of Desiring God. Aileen the supermom packed a great bag of goodies for the kids—coloring books and stories, stickers and stamps, and nearly everything else a kid could want to use up some of the long hours. The kids haven’t quite yet caught onto the joy of traveling games—counting out of state plates, etc. But they had a good time with their treat bags and with a couple of DVDs as well. I didn’t listen to as much as the audio books as I might have liked, but did make some progress through The Pilgrim’s Progress since I thought the children would be more likely to enjoy that than Desiring God.

I’m determined that we’ll make the most of these two drives and thought I would ask you what you do to keep from wasting your drives. Every family, I think, sooner or later does a ridiculously long drive. If you’ve done that, why not share what you do to redeem some of that time. I’d be eager to learn.