When I was a kid, riding in a car for more than one hour at a time was a tortuous affair.
Even if I had enough books to keep myself occupied, there wasn't a guarantee my three other siblings had the same amount of distractions. This was long before cars came outfitted with video screens so parents could just pop in "The Lion King" and drive off into the sunset.
Let's face it, a car full of bored kids is a ticking timebomb.
An argument of some sort was always guaranteed to start, my parents would step in as referees and calm would be restored to the car.
Now, if we decided to relive Jewett Family Vacation '01 and drive to Colorado, I think my parents would find the quiet unsettling.
ADVERTISEMENT
Between my smartphone, a much larger collection of novels and a Gameboy Color, I know I wouldn't have a reason to make a peep, much less start an argument with any of my siblings. I know such devices made a recent road trip with a friend that required about 24 hours of driving round trip seem to zip by.
My siblings and I all have our driver's licenses now as well, so my parents could even make us rotate driving duty. I'll never know how they managed to split up family vacation driving between just the two of them, but patience for driving seems to be something that comes with age.
When I went off to college at UND, my trek home became a two-hour drive. Though the scenery becomes more interesting as I draw closer to the Sheyenne River Valley, I still had to drive through a lot of flat farmland to get there.
It conditioned me well for the now five hours of driving I endure to visit my best friends in the Twin Cities. The trees and hills that pop up on that stretch of Interstate 94 are downright mesmerizing compared to cornfields.
On those long drives, the best thing about being captain of my own car journeys is the ability to stop whenever and wherever I want. It gives me endless opportunities to explore the path to my destination more thoroughly.
If something looks pretty, I can stop and take a picture. If there's a tourist trap, it's my decision alone to spend money on something that will likely draw nothing more than a "Eh," from me.
Now if self-driving cars would just become an everyday method of transportation, I could do all that and watch Simba be crowned king when I jump back in the car.
