Road Trip!

Here we go with some things we learned and experienced on our family road trip! I made zero notes during the trip, so this is sure to be missing things, but here, at least, are some highlights.

We started off with a lot of driving, since we were headed through some very sparsely populated areas of New Mexico with not much to stop and see. On the way, both kids were interested in looking at maps of where we were going, which our road atlas provided. We brought out some electronic toys we'd bought for our last road trip two years ago, which played games for learning letters, shapes, phonics, and a little spelling. T didn't remember them, and they fed his current interest in letters, the sounds they make, and how words he knows are spelled (he'll look at a stop sign and ask, "How you spell stop?"), as well as a general interest in gadgets. Though P's already learned most of their lessons, she liked playing with them and helping T learn to use them.

And honestly, they fought over them quite a bit at first. Road trips are crucibles for dealing with squabbling and conflict in general, and the first full day on the road (we got away mid-afternoon the first day) was pretty rotten. One thing we learned was to put the toys away in the morning, when the kids were fresh -- interestingly, this brought no objections from the kids -- and look out the windows and talk together, or occasionally listen to a book on CD together. In the afternoon, when the kids started to wilt, we'd have some quiet time so T could take a nap (P would read, doze, look out the window, or write a note to a friend at home), and then if we were still driving after the nap, we'd get out the electronic toys -- with an agreement about how to share them -- or a video both kids could watch. We loaded up the iPad with episodes of the kids' favorite PBS Kids shows, and the ones that got the most love on the trip were Martha Speaks (lots of fun vocabulary development and storylines the kids enjoyed), Wild Kratts (an adventure show about animals and their "creature powers," which has led to some very detailed pretend play about being draco lizards, monarch butterflies, bats, etc.), and Dinosaur Train (which mixes time-traveling fantasy and family-oriented stories with lots of real information about dinosaurs, including some that's new to me).

Besides shaping the day to the kids' energy levels, the best thing I figured out to do was to ask the kids to think, in the morning, about what kind of day they wanted to have. (This was particularly fruitful after that first rotten day!) I'd remind them that what we all did would set the tone for the day, and encourage them to think about what they could do that would help make the kind of day they wanted to have. That, plus an occasional reminder that we all could affect how the day went, made a big difference toward compromise, peaceful conflict resolution, and general not-yelling-at-each-other. Other good developments in getting along: P got a little better at remembering she's not the only one in the family with desires and needs and trying to think of or agree to win-win or at least compromise solutions. For one specific example: Before the trip, P said she didn't want to share a bed with T at all, even though we might be getting some two-queen rooms for the whole family in order to pay for one room and not two. So we brought a sleeping pad she (or T, if she could convince him) could use to sleep on the floor. When it came down to it, she decided to try sharing the bed, and both kids ended up enjoying the night and morning cuddling and the waking up happy together. Fortunately their needs for nighttime sleep are very compatible right now! After the trip she told me she'd like to share a big bed with T some more at home, and T has asked P to help him get down for his nap twice.

After lunch on the second full day out, we arrived at Carlsbad Caverns, our first big destination. We did the self-tour of the Big Room with the kids' version of the audio guide, since T was too young for the ranger-guided tours. The audio guide was more information than the kids wanted to digest, so I'd listen to it and give them the highlights. We learned about how the cavern developed in the first place, how its many decorations were formed, and the history of its exploration, including the first explorer (who began at age 16) and the first female explorers (teenage daughters of other expedition members). It was T's naptime, so we ended up carrying his slumbering body through the second half of the 1.5-mile hike -- quite a workout in 95% humidity, and we were profoundly glad for the occasional bench. The things that stuck with me the most about the caverns were P's awe and wonder at a still-forming feature (this was near the end of the walk, and she already knew enough to understand what she was looking at and marvel at how those tiny drops of water were creating such massive forms), and the fact that some 4500-year-old bat guano was probably the youngest natural feature of the Big Room.

We had a wonderful time in the Carlsbad Caverns bookstore, which fortunately we found before the gift shop. T found a deck of photos of animals that he enjoyed playing with in the car. P got a couple of picture books about the desert to peruse. And best of all, we bought a field guide to cacti and other arid-lands plants. For the next day and a half, as we drove through West Texas, this helped us learn new plants and find out a lot about them, as UnschoolerDad, P, and I read sections of the book aloud. Saguaros and other giant cacti, which we didn't see but read a lot about, are particularly amazing in their details. (Oddly, I found that twice the right name for a plant occurred to me, even though I didn't think I knew the plant's name, and since I was driving for this whole stretch, I hadn't opened the field guide. The plants were staghorn cholla and mesquite trees. I am 100% certain I didn't learn those in school! A friend guessed that I'd read enough about the Southwest, especially in Barbara Kingsolver books, that I'd stored the names away then without realizing it.) As we drove through burned and unburned areas near Carlsbad, it was interesting to see the differences: which plants survived the burning, and how things were re-establishing themselves in that dry and rocky land.

We spent a long day driving across more of West Texas, watching the slow change in vegetation from yucca and cactus to mesquite and cactus, with more and more live oaks as we approached Austin. At a rest stop, I got out a ball to kick around. P wanted to play catch, saying, "I don't know anything about soccer." I said we didn't need to play soccer, and that kicking a ball around could be a lot like playing catch, only with your feet, so she gave it a try. Soon we were defending trees and picnic grills as goals and dribbling the ball around with great glee, which was a good prelude to a nap!

In Austin, we visited with family and spent a lot of time outside in the beautiful weather. We took a sunset cruise one night to see the bats leave their roosts under the Congress Avenue Bridge. The guide shared lots of interesting information about the river, the bridge, and the bats. The bridge was redone in the 1980s to make it better for the bats. Whereas before it was inhabited by a motley crew of male bats, now its deep expansion-joint recesses are so attractive that the pregnant mama bats have kicked out the guys and made it their summer nursery, housing nearly 2 million bats. The bats like having room to drop, which they need to do to get flying -- bats rarely land during an evening of flying and feeding. We saw some of them drop, but the most amazing thing was their agility in flying around tight corners. These creatures weigh about the same as a nickel. The evolutionary engineering to get something so slight to achieve and endure such tight cornering boggles the mind. We also enjoyed hearing the audible portions of their vocalizations as we passed under the bridge, though some of the babies on the boat with us seemed pretty distressed, possibly by higher frequencies only they could hear.

While we were in Austin, P's uncle, a Half Price Books fanatic, chased down a copy of the third book in Lemony Snicket's A Series of Unfortunate Events, so P could continue reading the series to herself as we drove. She chose several other books while she was at the bookstore. After we got home, P told me one evening that she was ready to give away her Magic School Bus books (as she's already done with most of her Magic Tree House books). When I asked why, she said that she'd already read them, and that they were now below her reading level. When I asked what she wanted to be reading now, she answered, "You know, longer books with smaller letters." She's caught on to the industry indicators of intended reading level, all right! In the same evening of conversation, she told me offhandedly that she was reading Little House in the Big Woods to T. Did you hear that sound of my heart singing a little at the initiative and the sibling harmony, not to mention the advance in reading level? And she still begs some nights to stay up late and read. (We still draw a line, albeit a blurry one sometimes, on bedtime, since T wakes up early no matter when he goes to bed, and more sleep makes better days. P, who can sleep in after a late night, gets a little more leeway.)

Our time in Dallas brought more family visits and some interesting experiences and potential future experiences. The kids learned that my parents' dog was failing quickly from a recently-discovered, aggressive cancer. He had some good days while we were there, but had to be put down shortly after we got back home. This went right by T, who doesn't show any understanding of the concept of death yet. P was very solicitous with the dog while we visited, and had a very dark day the day he was put down. She remembers a cat we put down a few years ago -- an early start to her real-world experiences with death. She does, in fact, still want to keep fish -- I broached the subject, and she kept us researching for most of an evening about the kinds of fish we might start with. I have the feeling there will be further experiences with death along that path, but also a wealth of learning about small ecosystems, water chemistry, predation, life cycles, and more.

We also visited my only living grandparent, my dad's mom, who gave me my choice of a wealth of genealogical records and photo albums to bring home. (She would have given me all of them, but space in the car was limited!) I tried to choose some that would provide many stories I could share with her and with the kids, so there should be some fun glimpses of history to be had there. P has enjoyed stories I've told her so far from family history gleaned on my mom's side of the family.

T and I had a quick adventure one afternoon in Dallas, riding the newish light rail system. One-on-one time with the kids is a blessing when it comes; T has so many more questions when I'm alone with him than at other times, and I like being able to go at his pace more of the time.

On the way back from Dallas, we stopped in Wichita Falls and checked out the River Bend Nature Center. It was a slow morning there, and the kids got a lot of attention from a volunteer, who took out several snakes for them to see and touch and told them what she knew about these particular snakes. There was a milk snake (a species often confused with coral snakes), and we learned the rule that if red touches black, that's a nonvenomous milk snake, but if red touches yellow, that's a coral snake and deadly. There was also a snake in for rehab who was not being handled, so we talked about the different reasons an animal might be in a nature center, and why different reasons would mean different treatment for the animal. We played outside on some covered wagons, noticing the springs under the seats and how they worked and relating this to the lack of shock absorption in the wheels and axles. There was a sandbox with lots of real bones buried in it; these seemed to be mostly horse bones. We dug up one or two dozen bones, noticing the shapes of the jaw bones, the porous and networked texture of all the bones, the shapes of the molars, and how some of the shapes made good digging tools. We talked about what sorts of tools people might have made from bones like these. We articulated a femur and pelvis that seemed to belong together, checking out the ball-and-socket joint with hands on and envisioning the ligaments that would hold the joint together in a live animal. We also went over our experiences with bones, trying to figure out what color bones would be in a live animal, since the ones we were looking at were all sunbleached. And we talked about the phrases "long in the tooth" and "look a gift horse in the mouth" as they relate to horses' molars continuing to grow well into adulthood. Finally, we stopped by the pond and checked out the structures of lily pads, with their sturdy stems and clinging roots.

At the Nature Center store we bought a couple of books of Mad Libs, which were new to our kids. Within fifteen minutes back in the car, P had the more common parts of speech (nouns, plural nouns, verbs, adjectives, and adverbs) sorted out and was enjoying the random hilarity as we filled in the Mad Libs together and read them out.

We took a rest day in Amarillo, getting some down time hanging around the hotel room and then checking out the Kwahadi Museum of the American Indian in town. There we saw arrow and spear points made from stone; different kinds of flutes and shakers; animal pelts of various species, including faces and feet; different kinds of beads and beadwork; people in the process of designing beadwork and weaving on inkle looms; and youth practicing theatrical versions of ceremonial dances. All the people were part of a scouting program, and none were Native Americans of any description. (One of the scout leaders told us this; it wasn't just our assumption based on appearance.) That felt odd to me, and made us wonder how faithfully things there were interpreted; but it was an interesting time nonetheless.

The rest of our trip home was very unscheduled and ad hoc, which was delightful. We stopped when something looked interesting and when it seemed a stop might be nice. An unassuming little museum in Dumas, TX, turned out to be a gold mine of artifacts from 100 years ago, give or take a decade or two. It was set up in many small areas, each focused on a different area of life or a different trade or business. We saw and talked about an old phone switchboard (we discussed how calls were connected then and now), a check cancelling machine from a bank (how checks work), a dry-goods store display with fabric and trims for clothing (similarities to modern fabric stores and the limited selection long ago), a doctor's office with herbal remedies as well as early pharmaceuticals and an ether-based anesthesia machine, a Victrola (P saw a vinyl record and asked, "What's this?" and we talked about what it was and how it worked, and I felt old!), a set of McGuffey readers (we discussed how few books an early schoolhouse would have had, and how students learned many subjects by reading and memorizing in these readers), a wall of post office boxes, a huge collection of toy and real tractors and other farm implements, and a shelf of court docket books, among a great many other things. I bought a pocketknife for P, who I think is ready for one -- I was reminded by Gever Tulley's TED Talk, "Five Dangerous Things You Should Let Your Kids Do," that I was already whittling at P's age, and didn't quite manage to put out my own eye doing so. Later that day I showed it to her, and we started on some verbal safety lessons about where and how to use it safely, including an account of my near-blinding experience. The hands-on lessons haven't begun yet, but she's eager to start, so we will soon.

We stopped in a few places in southeastern Colorado. One was a ranger station for the Comanche National Grasslands, where T and P scored a lot of free goodies from the friendly ranger staffing the counter. The best: a field guide to prairie birds, which P has spent a lot of time with since then. Sometimes she's reading it or incorporating it into pretend play ("This is a packet showing all the birds I sighted this morning on my birdwatching expedition!"), and sometimes she's relating it to birds she has seen. Another stop was a railroad depot in Kit Carson, where the museum was closed, but the kids still enjoyed climbing on a real caboose parked by the parking lot. The scale of a real train car is hard to fathom until you stand right next to it, and they finally had that opportunity.

And then there were things that happened all along, or didn't depend much on where we were:

• We kept track of the numbers of engines and cars in each train we saw, if someone was available to count them at the time, and we worked out the ratio of cars to engines for each, using mental arithmetic and sharing a few estimation tricks with P. All the ratios came out between 30 and 35, regardless of the type of train or whether its cars were loaded or empty, except for one train that was stopped and looked like it might be in the process of being reconfigured. 
• We watched The Weather Channel and Animal Planet several evenings in hotels, since it seemed to hold the kids' interest better than other available fare. We saw lots of riveting stories about tornadoes, floods, venomous snakes and lizards, invasive foreign animal species, and more, but even these lost their shine after a while. This was one of the first experiences our kids have had with broadcast TV and the idea that "what's on" is limited and often not that interesting. This almost feels like a history lesson, given all that's available on demand now!
• We talked a little about caffeine as both a common stimulant and an addiction. When I explained once that we were stopping so UnschoolerDad could get some iced tea, P asked why he wanted it, and I  explained that he had been using it enough that he was getting some withdrawal headaches without it. P immediately asked the right question (to my mind): Why did he start using it in the first place? He had some good reasons, but P came away with what seems to me like a healthy suspicion that using habit-forming substances may not always be worth the short-term pleasures or benefits.

After we got back, P volunteered one day, "Sometimes I think I might want to go back to school, but then I think about it." I asked, "What thought stops you from leaning that way?" She replied, "I like being able to go places and learn about stuff I'm interested in."

And mama smiled.