My mother tried that once, Vortex, so I put down the book and started to sing.

She stopped after that.

because my one sister and I were too busy hating each other furiously and guarding the invisible line down the middle of the back seat for unauthorized encroachment.

Change that to brother and add in a wall of sleeping bags, and you've described the primary activity on our family car trips. Which there were about every summer, sometimes two or three. Long trips.

Other activities included Walk a Mile Because You Didn't Stop Fighting, Whining, and Throwing Debris On Sleeping Sibling.

We also read a lot.

I read a lot, but I had to stop sometimes because it made me carsick.

I suspect being an only child made family travel much more enjoyable for me.

because my one sister and I were too busy hating each other furiously and guarding the invisible line down the middle of the back seat for unauthorized encroachment.

this was never really an issue for us, because we always carried a cooler full of drinks and snacks that we placed between us. there may have been some subtle shoving, but it never got out of hand.

I've never been able to read without getting carsick, unfortunately. Though far worse was the reverse seat in the back of the station wagon. Makes me nauseated just thinking about. We did lots of the alphabet game and later travel versions of assorted board games like Sorry and Trouble.

I probably harassed my sister a bit during long drives. No license plate games, because these drives were happening in Jamaica or the UK, and there aren't regional plate variations there.

Mostly I read or threw up (smells of exhaust and sugar cane combined make for nasty ita tummy, even though my father still swears it's impossible to smell a sugar cane field--so he kept the windows down despite my entreaties. I kept puking, despite his). One vacation (Lake District and souther Scotland, if memory serves) I was reading Lord of the Rings and decided to memorise all the songs. By repeated recitation.

They took it pretty well.

I scoff at your family vacations.

Picture, a Brady Bunch station wagon. Parents in the front seat. 3 kids in the back seat. 2 kids in the rear seat (you know, the one that faces backwards, the one that is, I believe, illegal now). Driving for 2 solid days to get to the grandparent's house in Alabama. Driving another day to get to the other set of relatives.

5 kids in one station wagon=lots of shoving, fighting and whining.

5 kids in one station wagon=stressed parents and a mother with impeccable aim with a plastic flyswatter. Seriously, she kept a flyswatter on the seat next to her and without even turning around could THWAP the misbehaving child's thigh.

We played 20 questions, that "I'm going to ___ and I'm taking..." memory game, Super Quiz, MasterMind... and there was some magnetic travel game we had. I can picture the case but I can't think what it was. Oh, it might have been Parcheesi! Which is the slowest, dullest board game in the world, so really the only time you'd want to play it is on a long car trip.

But mostly I think there was lots of Password. Which led, inevitably, to the great Password cheating scandal. I can't wait till my nephew is old enough to carry on the family traditions.

I don't remember fighting with my brother much in the car. I think being 5 years apart helped. I do remember that sometimes I would stretch out on the floor (since I was smaller), and he would stretch out on the seat. So to this

Kids these days, with their DVD players in their cars....

I've never been able to read without getting carsick, unfortunately. Though far worse was the reverse seat in the back of the station wagon. Makes me nauseated just thinking about.

I could read in the car or on a train. I could ride backwards in the car or on a train. My mother never could. And after years of her saying, "I could never do that, I would feel so nauseated," I started feeling nauseated.