I’ll admit that Matt (who is an 18^th-century scholar) was more enamored of My Name is Handel: The Story of Handel’s Water Music than either of the boys. He and I really enjoyed hearing the engaging tale of this famous and familiar music and its composer. The CD shares a beautiful sampling of Handel’s work from arias to symphonies and the story it tells includes details like the fact that King George, who had every right to be angry at a renegade Handel, was placated by the special music composed for his coronation. And I didn’t know that it actually debuted in a boat – full of 53 musicians – that pulled alongside the royal barge. The king liked the music so much that he ordered played three times on that boat trip up the Thames.

It may be that the boys would have been more engaged if we had been listening to or talking about Handel before debuting it – or if I had played it before our trip to London where most of the story is set. The CD comes with a booklet that includes a brief biography of Handel and other relevant historical information, like what instruments played in the orchestras of Handel’s time and what buildings were significant in the London he lived in. There are a number of other CDs in this series, including some that set music to favorite children’s books like Mike Mulligan and His Steam Shovel. Given the high quality of the Handel album, I would definitely check out some of the other offerings.

We’re huge fans of the Beethoven’s Wig CDs in my house, so I wasn’t surprised that we liked Beethoven’s Wig: Sing Along Piano Classics. If you’re not familiar with these fun albums you should be; on them Richard Perlmutter takes well-known classical pieces of various genres and periods and writes laugh-out-loud lyrics to them. These songs often relate topically to the music’s name or composer (for example, on an earlier CD, Eine Kleine Nachtmusik was turned into “Please Don’t Play Your Violin at Night”). Past albums have focused on symphonic music, so I was pleased to see that this newest offering is all piano pieces – Tommy is in his fourth year of lessons and is always pleased to listen to songs that he might play himself one day.

My personal favorite on the album is the witty “Mozart Makes Kid Smart” sung to the tune of Alla Turca (by Mozart of course); it includes a joke about No Child Left Behind. Of note also is “Poor Uncle Joe” accompanied by Chopin’s Funeral March – Uncle Joe is apparently having car trouble and he’s “gotta go and get a tow.” Teddy’s vote is for “My Little Chicken” sung to the tune of Chopsticks, not the least because it includes an enthusiastic round of clucking. All of these albums also include unaccompanied versions of the music, so that kids can listen to the music without words as well.

The boys’ favorite CD (and the one that’s come into the house from the car for repeated listening) is Wild Child from the Celebrate Earth series at Recess Music. The varied songs on this album all share a common theme of celebrating animals from the rainforest to the jungle. I found this music to be inspirational and perfect for a traveling family, with its gentle reminders to cherish and protect the world around us and in particular some of the more fragile and endangered spaces on our planet. Much of the music includes African instruments and rhythms. Although we liked all of the songs, there are a few standouts: “Serengeti” by Aaron Glassman is a beautiful and rich song with gospel accents. Teddy really loves “Rita The Cheetah,” a catchy tune that actually teaches listeners about cheetahs including the markings that distinguish them from leopards. And we all like the rhythms and call-and-response chorus of “Drumming With the Animals” and the plucky song “Animals” with its animal noises and whistling. I’ve added the other albums in this series (which include one called Ocean Motion) to Teddy’s Christmas list.

We all enjoyed having some new music for our summer road trips and it reminded me that sometimes a great new album can not only be the cure for “Are we there yet?” but can also provide pleasure once you get home.

I received free review copies of all three of these CDs, but was under no obligation to write about them. The opinions expressed here are, as always, my own.

Having a lovely time…wish you were here! It’s only be the end of August, but I’m already thinking about the travel I did this summer. I may not have mailed myself actual postcards, but that doesn’t mean I can’t send myself some memories now, a series of virtual postcards that I can return to and treasure as much as the real ones.

So where was I this summer?

In June, I headed off solo for Vancouver where I discovered the joys of Stanley Park and Granville Island on bike and foot respectively.

July found me and Matt piling our bikes on the car and heading for Boston where we parked it (bikes and all) for a long weekend at the Custom House. We visited the Museum of Science, Fenway Park, and the lions at the Boston Public Library.

Next came a road trip to Vermont and three dreamy weeks filled with mountains and lakes. This was capped off with a stay at the Stowe Mountain Lodge where we spent an entire lazy morning by the gorgeous pool.

And then it was on to Wisconsin, where with friends and family we enjoyed the lovely views to be found on Madison’s many bike paths.

Of course, when we write postcards home, we only tend to mention the fun parts of our family vacations – not the rainy days or unforeseen bumps in the road. We were fortunate; in driving our car (with four bikes on it) up and down New England and the Mid Atlantic we encountered torrential downpours and traffic jams but we never had a flat tire or other car trouble. But what if we had?

I’ve shared with you before that Allstate is offering us all a chance to be better prepared for road trips (summer and otherwise) with their Good Hands Roadside Assistance program which offers help with your vehicle only when you need it. You don’t have to be insured with Allstate to use this program and there are no annual fees.  You can sign up using the widget above – without even leaving this post. When you sign up for this program, you can include up to five drivers on your account. And when you’re on the road, there’s no need to seek out local garages or towing companies – one call to the Allstate 800 number and you’ll get help. They offer an app for your smart phone. You don’t have to pay for the program unless you actually use it. And here’s the biggest bonus of all: Allstate/Good Hands Roadside Assistance is offering one reader a chance to win a $50 gift card from Amazon. To enter, leave a comment sharing your own postcard-worthy story or memory from either a trip you took this summer or an earlier family road trip. This contest is open until 12:01 a.m. EST on Monday, August 29, 2011.

Looking for some extra chances to win? I’ll give two extra entries to anyone who:

• Registers for the program and comments about it here

• Downloads the mobile app and comments about it here

And I’ll give one extra entry to anyone who:

• Tweets about the giveaway as follows: Just entered the Allstate giftcardgiveaway via @motherofalltrip. Could win a $50 Amazon Gift Card. Your turn!

• Shares this post on Facebook and comments about it here

There is no purchase necessary to enter or win. Odds of winning are not increased by a purchase. See below for rules.

This post is sponsored by Allstate Good Hands Roadside Assistance and gift card is donated by Allstate/Good Hands Roadside.

Giveaway rules:

Please, only one comment per person per giveaway post (except as outlined above where the comment is related to an extra entry). Duplicate comments and anonymous comments will be discarded. Please make sure that the email address in your comment form is valid (email addresses are never public and I don’t share them with sponsors). Winners must claim their prize within three business days after the date of notification of such prize. A sweepstakes winner’s failure to respond to the prize notification within the specified three business days will be considered such sweepstakes winner’s forfeiture of the prize and an alternate winner may be selected from the pool of eligible entries. If an entrant is found to be ineligible, an alternate winner may also be selected from the pool of eligible entries. Employees, partners and vendors of The Mother of All Trips and their immediate family members are not eligible to enter. We will disqualify any entries that we believe are generated by scripts and other automated technology. When applicable, the winner may be required to execute and return within five business days an Affidavit of Eligibility and a Liability and Publicity Release to be eligible for the prize or an alternate winner will be selected. All prizes will be awarded by The Mother of All Trips and  have been provided by Allstate Good Hands Roadside Assistance. Winners shall be responsible and liable for all federal, state and local taxes on the value of their prize. The Mother of All Trips is responsible for all aspects of this contest.

Today we’re continuing our drive to Vermont, where we’ll spend the next three weeks. To get to our final destination is a total of about 11 hours in the car, which now is really no big deal. But once upon a time, when I was a new parent, this would have been epic.

I’ll never forget the first time Matt and I took a road trip as parents – thousands of miles in a small car with an infant and very little planning. How I laugh at myself: I thought I was going to pump breast milk in the car and didn’t make a single hotel reservation.

Since that first journey, I’ve developed lots of tricks and tips for road trips with kids, from making playlists to taking the occasional detour. The essence of my recommendations boils down to this: Do a little planning to save yourself a whole lot of grief and trouble. And one thing I can heartily endorse is being prepared for unforeseen circumstances. Which is why I’m happy to partner with Allstate to bring you a chance to sign up for their new Good Hands Roadside Assistance program.

The genius here is that you only pay for roadside assistance when you need it. You don’t have to carry your insurance with Allstate to use this program and there are no monthly or annual fees.  You can sign up using the widget below – without even leaving this post – and you’ll never be stuck with an overheated car or a flat tire and no help in sight.

Full disclosure: Allstate sponsored this post, and I have not yet used their product. But I plan to when I need it.

Have you already left for your holiday road trip? Or are you at your destination and are dreading the long trip home? Before you go out and buy yourself a bottle of tequila and a set of noise-cancelling headphones be sure to read my article “How To Take the Crazy Out of Holiday Road Tripping With Kids” on the Matador Network. I’ve distilled all of my top road trip tips into one post that hopefully will make that long journey just a little more fun.

And do stay safe! From Los Angeles to London there’s certainly been lots of crazy weather this month.

We just got back from a very quick (as in less than 24-hours) visit to nearby Lancaster, PA and it’s got me in the summertime mood. A road tripping kind of mood.

Road trips for me mean loading up the car and setting off, often for weeks at a time. They mean trying out local diners and ice cream. They mean evenings full of “look-at-me’s!” in hotel swimming pools. They mean hours and hours of reading aloud and making up stories. They mean stickers, invisible pen books, and games of Twenty Questions. They mean having my seat kicked repeatedly. They mean seeing far-flung friends and family. They mean exploring new places. They mean unexpected detours. They mean lots of time together to talk and ask questions and bicker and just breathe the same air in the same small space.

I don’t actually have any serious road trips planned this summer other than our usual day-long drive to Vermont and back. But today I’m dreaming of that moment (I’ve called it “the driveway moment” before) when the car is packed, the kids are in it, and we’re off on a new adventure where we’ll count the miles and look at license plates and marvel as the scenery changes.

I’ve linked to lots of my road trip stories, but I wanted to draw your attention to the series I wrote last summer offering my top road trip tips (not to be brag, but I do think I know a thing or two):

• Eating on the road
• Be a little sneaky
• Music, music, music
• A detour can be your friend
• Don’t underestimate driving times

And if you’re looking for more travel tips, check out this opportunity to download some free travel books – and help donate money to spread clean drinking while you do it.

What do road trips mean to you? And what are your Monday Dreams? Please feel free to share them below. Questions? See About Monday Dreaming.

My name is Mara and I am addicted to my new iPhone.

Phew. It feels good to write those words. I’m a little sad and ashamed to report that on our recent trip to Los Angeles and Arizona, I was guilty of something I deplore – hunching over the screen of my phone, thumbs working, eyes glazed, oblivious to the world around me. Of course, I also put the phone to some really great use – locating parking and restaurants, mapping various routes, playing great music, finding a gas station when we almost ran out of gas in the desert. But as Matt informed me last night, I also acted like a “15-year-old boy” in the Phoenix airport, Tweeting and updating my Facebook status while he entertained the kids.

I feel particularly bad about this because for years I’ve been advocate of traveling without screens. My children own no portable video games or even Leapsters. No television or DVD player has ever come anywhere near my car. Heck, we don’t even go the audio book route, choosing instead to read aloud to each other. A point of particular pride for me was our trip last summer, when we spent 48 screenless hours driving across the Midwest.

(In case you are wondering, yes I am descended from New England Puritan stock.)

I haven’t changed my stance altogether, but having the phone has made me realize that used judiciously there are some ways that technology can enhance travel for everyone. And if I’m poring over blog posts in my reader, why shouldn’t the boys be able to practice counting or puzzle solving or even *gasp* play a bit of Tetris? I realize this is a slippery slope, and I’m more than a little uneasy about it, but if I’m going to enjoy my phone, it’s only fair that I let the kids join in the fun.

So why am I writing about this? I’m participating in a contest at Best Kids Apps, a blog about iPhone apps for kids, for a chance to win an iPad. That’s right – I’m trying to win yet another screen that I can take with me! An even bigger one! But I also want to tout this site, which was created by Jamie Pearson of Travel Savvy Mom and Jen Leo, who blogs about travel for the Los Angeles Times. They are both funny and smart and know from cool when it comes to traveling with children. As a newbie to the whole kids app thing, I’m so grateful that they’ve made finding some fun stuff for the kids so easy for me.

I will conclude this post with a dual promise: I’m going to be as strict with myself as I am with the boys and never again will I sit enthralled by a screen in the airport while Matt chats with the boys. And when everything in the car (and I mean everything, especially all the books) has lost its charm on marathon drives, I will have a few goodies loaded onto Matt’s and my phone for the boys to enjoy. And if I’m lucky, while they use the phones, I can amuse myself on my new iPad.

Photo courtesy of twenty5pics via Flickr.

On Easter afternoon, we loaded up our gear and headed from Los Angeles to Phoenix, where Matt’s parents live. And no, we weren’t on camels. Although we might have been better off if we were.

Here’s my brilliant travel tip of the week: When you’ve been driving through desert for about four hours in a rented Jeep SUV that shifts like a golf cart and smells like oil and you’ve finally crossed the state line and pass a bunch of big signs saying “Gas!” and you look at the dashboard and there’s just over a quarter of a tank left, don’t think idly to yourself that you had better stop the next exit and fuel up and then zip by singing along to whatever your Pandora station happens to be playing, Dionne Warwick for example.

We drove and drove and drove, and the needle continued of course to go down at an alarming rate. Then we passed a sign saying that the next town, Tonopah, was 25 miles away. There was no mention of whether or not there might be a gas station there. I looked around – nothing but saguaros and yellow wildflowers as far as the eye could see.

Casually, I reached over and turned the air conditioning off, hoping that Matt wouldn’t notice and maybe the gage would hold steady. He made no comment, and for a few miles I thought maybe I was OK.

Then the low-gas light flashed on with a loud ding. “What’s that? Oh boy!” Matt exclaimed, playing Bing Crosby to my Bob Hope. “Oh boy! You better slow down.”

So I did, pulling in behind an RV going about 60 miles an hour (the speed limit was 75). And for the next 25 minutes I prayed “don’trunoutofgas, don’trunoutofgas, don’trunoutofgas” while car after car after semi came roaring up behind us, whipping over into the left lane at what seemed always like the last possible safe moment. Matt, meanwhile, was desperately trying to figure out how to get the MapQuest app on my iPhone to tell him where the nearest gas might be. To his credit, he spoke not one word of blame, but I could tell from the set of his jaw that it was taking all of his muscular control not to do so.

Periodically from the backseat one of the boys would ask “Are we going to run out of gas?” Neither of them seemed genuinely concerned that it would happen – I think they were more worried about the tension that suddenly dominated the front of the car. I could barely watch the road, my eyes were so fixed on that needle, willing it with all my power not to sink any lower.

For those of you planning this same journey, I will tell you this: Tonopah does have several gas stations, one of which we coasted into on fumes. And my marriage is still intact. And the boys are unscarred. In fact, sensing my weakness and distraction in the mini-market of the gas station, they each conned a huge soda and then proceeded to get completely drunk on high-fructose corn syrup for the rest of the ride.

I’m not one for making categorical vows, but with the Interwebs as my witness, I promise you that from now on that anything near a quarter of a tank = empty.

people ask you if you’re home for the holidays and you say “oh, yes. We’re home.” Over and over again.

But then each time you add “oh, but we’re leaving on Tuesday for a night in Philadelphia. Then we’ll be heading up to Bethlehem, PA on Wednesday where we’ll be attending the first annual Peeps Fest. Then it’s over to Reading on Thursday for New Year’s Eve at my sister’s house.”

Since it’s Christmas week and we’re not getting on an airplane apparently three days on the road and two nights in a hotel don’t really count as traveling. More like taking a stroll up the street I guess.

I do have some sad news to report: Our reliable, grody, small-but-gets-the-job-done sedan may be moving one step closer to obsolescence. Due to a strange noise it’s been making we don’t trust it and have actually rented a car for this jaunt. So we’ll be traveling in the spacious comfort of a mid-sized car smelling of whatever that spray is they use as opposed to boy funk.

I hope to write some posts about this “non-trip” from the road. Stay tuned…

On this trip I was rarely caught without sufficient snacks or activities. We also had plenty of books. Since the speed limit in the Midwest is often as high as 75 miles per hour, we didn’t manage to always drive at 60 mph or slower as we had planned because it didn’t feel safe; but we did stay under 65 for the most part. And yes, Matt and I did ignore the fact that our car stereo, which had slowly been breaking for over two years, had finally given up the ghost for good right before we left. This meant no music on the drive from Delaware to Wisconsin. But we redeemed ourselves by buying a new stereo there – and since it was one that we could plug our iPods into, we had even more music than before for the rest of the tip.

However, when I do think about the things I might have done differently, there’s one theme that emerges, which we’ll call Road Trip Tip #6: Be realistic about driving times.

I have a bad habit of deciding what I want our driving time to be and then convincing myself that I can will it to be so, disregarding the possibility for traffic or weather, the need to eat and use the bathroom, or even the actual distance we need to cover. This last was especially problematic given our effort to drive more slowly. I don’t know what wacky math made me think that we could make it from Saint Louis to Bardstown, Kentucky (a distance of 300 miles) in four hours, but I did. That we could do so became even more unlikely when we left Missouri in a driving rainstorm that chased us most of the way. Since we had nonrefundable and not inexpensive tickets to see “Stephen Foster: The Musical” at 2 p.m., my underestimate made for a tense last half hour in the car.

So here’s my solemn promise, made for all the world to see: In the future, when I’m planning a trip I will tack at least 60 minutes onto any estimated driving time and make decisions accordingly. I’m sure Matt would say I should add 120, but there’s only so much change I can handle at one time.

And here’s a tip-within-a-tip – don’t be fast and loose about holiday weekends. We came back to Delaware on July 4^th and 5^th but I didn’t try to book a hotel on the 4^th until about a week beforehand when every room in West Virginia (not that there are many of them) was taken. We ended up having to spend the night of the 4^th in Lexington, Kentucky, which meant a very long driving day on a Sunday of a holiday weekend – hence the detour I described in a previous post. It would have been better if I had booked a hotel well in advance and we had driven as far as possible on Saturday to shorten up that last day of driving.

Does anyone else have mistakes they’ve made on long driving tips that they’d like to share? I’d love to hear what they are!

This post is the last one in my 2009 series of Road Trip Tips. Other tips in the series include:

• Goodbye summer…but before you go a few road trip tips
• Eating on the road
• Be a little sneaky
• Music, music, music
• A detour can be your friend

I’m sure this has happened to you: You’ve planned your trip carefully, gone online and looked up the perfect route home. You know down to the minute exactly how long the drive should take and may even be gaming it a little bit as a consequence (“Sure 12 hours is a long day, but it’s our last day in the car – we can do it.”). Maybe in the morning everything went so smoothly that you actually made up a little time and with undeserved hubris fueled by a caffeine buzz are now thinking you’ll have time for a grocery-store run when you get home.

Then you see the brake lights stretching into what seems like infinity. It must be time for Road Trip Tip #5: Detours can be a good idea.

If you have a GPS system in your car, you may already know the virtues of this tip. But I have a feeling that even with a computer to help many of us feel like we have to stick with major roads. So we sit in horrendous traffic, the sun beating through the windows, the children who have up until now been angelic whining (and let’s face it – we want to whine with them). Someone will have to pee. Someone else will be hungry. In the space of twenty minutes you forget why you even bothered to leave home in the first place.

This happened to us on the last day of our Midwestern driving trip this summer. Soon after we crossed the border from West Virginia into Maryland we encountered a serious accident that stopped traffic altogether for 45 minutes. Then a little farther on, when we hit the road that would take us down to the beltway around Baltimore and then to I-95 where we would turn north and head home (there’s no direct way to drive across Maryland see) the traffic was backed up in a way that promised we’d be moving at a clip of about ten miles an hour. It was late afternoon and we’d been in the car since 8 a.m.

I consulted our atlas, realized how far west we still were, and made the command decision that we would drive north into Pennsylvania and take Route 30 across the state through Gettysburg to Lancaster, where we would be in familiar territory and knew the back roads back to Delaware. And here’s what ensued:

• We drove through the lovely rolling hills of central-western Pennsylvania, golden in the sun, while the kids napped because the car was moving.
• Although we had to slow down to 30 miles per hour through any number of small towns, we encountered virtually no traffic anywhere and made decent time.
• At the exact moment when all of us wanted dinner we were driving through the fields that surround Gettysburg and happened upon the Appalachian Brewing Company where not only did we enjoy a great meal (the picture below is Teddy enjoying the “appetizer” of crackers, American cheese, and Mandarin orange slices that came with his kid’s meal) but where Matt and I could each have a much-needed beer.
• The last hour of our trip was spent not in tears and recrimination but with giddy, slap-happy kids who shrieked and laughed and generally enjoyed the naughty feeling of being up late and out after dark.

Because we were on country highways and stopped for a leisurely meal, the drive home probably took the same amount of time as it would have had we stayed on the Interstate. But it was cooler, more pleasant, and we didn’t have to eat a fast-food dinner at a crowded rest stop. It was a final reminder on this trip that even with kids in the car, road trips can be as much about the driving as the destination – and that a quick change of plans can be your salvation.

This post is part of my 2009 series of Road Trip Tips. Other tips in the series include:

• Goodbye summer…but before you go a few road trip tips
• Eating on the road
• Be a little sneaky
• Music, music, music
• Don’t underestimate driving times

Traffic jam photo courtesy of  http://www.flickr.com/photos/k2d2vaca/ / CC BY-NC-ND 2.0