The flight from DC to San Francisco was over 5 hours. I had a window seat and I’m not sure that I liked it. Typically, I’m a window seat kinda gal. I like to look out the window.

But on a ride that long, I knew I would have to use the facilities and I hate asking people to move on my behalf. Additionally, because I’m nosey, I didn’t like that I was unaware of what I was flying over. Like, I think I saw the Rockies but I’m not sure and I think that people should know what they are looking at. It gives me the chance to say “I’ve seen the Rockies” or “I flew over the Grand Canyon.”

I did happen to find the Flight Deck line on the built in radio on the plane and instead of watching the documentary on China or listening to music, I listened to the Flight Deck Channel. Sometimes, if you listened closely, you could hear our pilot mention where he was. But not often.

Regardless, it was interesting. Especially when another pilot said, “I can wait to turn a little bit later, but it’s going to put me at a lower fuel level than I’m comfortable with, so if you could turn me as soon as possible, that would be great.”

Thanked God repeatedly that I was not on that plane.

And when I did go to the bathroom, as all of us were congregating outside of the bathroom in the “kitchen” area of the plane, there was a little small talk going on between the passengers and the flight attendants.

Before I knew it, the words “How much longer until we’re there?” escaped my lips. I felt like a complete child.

But not as childish as when the flight attendant (who very much resembled the comic, Ant) replied “about two hours” and I wanted to stomp and scream. I wanted out of there. I wanted to be there. I was highly impatient.

And bored.

And for the first time in a long time, I could understand how my children feel when they are carted all over the country.

This summer, we logged 2431 miles in the car. That was just our trip to Mississippi. They were in the car more than that traveling to camp and then to Pennsylvania from Tennessee with my parents.

That’s alot of time in the car.

My parents and I are both of the “we don’t need a DVD player in the car” mentality. There are so many things to look at on long trips and so many car games that you can play to pass the time. However, my bosses, whom I love to death (how many people can say that?) surprised the kids with a portable DVD player a day before we left.

And for the most part, it worked out well. Only once did I have to take it away because we couldn’t decide which movie to watch and were fighting.

One of the movies that we had to watch was called TripFlix. When I was asked to review it, I wasn’t sure how it was going to go over with the kids, but the kids loved it and watched it more than once while on the trip and took it to my parents’ house as well to share with them.

TripFlix is a fun-filled interactive DVD that features some of the coolest kid-friendly places to travel across the US. Designed to help famililes pick an unusual travel destination and keep the kids enteretained while en route, TripFlix was a hit in our car with trivia questions, funny banter from the teens hosts/travel guides and little known facts about the destinations as varied as “Carhenge” in Nebraska and Space Camp in Huntsville, Alabama.

The best thing about this DVD, for my kids at least, was being able to see all the places that they already have been. They squealed when they saw Rock City, Tennessee had made the list and we all had fun with the trivia questions.

I never intended for the kids to watch the whole thing, let alone watch it more than once. But they would put in the DVD and when they had the choice of selecting a region of the country, they would quickly hit play all, sit back, and I would have two hours of peace and quiet in the car.

I highly recommend picking up TripFlix for your next road trip, or just to introduce your children to the various destinations around the country.

In my search for sanity, I was definitely able to find some time while they were engrossed in the movie.

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Until next time….

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