Now that we have lots of homes, we have the ability to create streets and blocks with them. You know, like a neighborhood! So, if we have a neighborhood, and it’s not one of those remote islands that only use bikes, we’re also going to need some cars. I’m excited to introduce you to our first vehicle! You know what this means. Roadtrip!Something about the summer air and hot car seats always makes me itch to grab a bag of not-so-healthy snacks, a cooler full of no-name soda pop and several good books. Because that is how we always road tripped when I was a kid. It was one of those family traditions: we had to travel across 4 states from our Midwestern home to Colorado, to see my grandparents.
This was a road trip made all through the 80’s—in cars without air conditioning (I remember my mother telling me to cover up with a wet swim towel to cool off?!). We drove in cars without good stereos. We definitely drove in cars without iPads or DVD’s. My brother and I would read voraciously, ask “Are we there yet?” incessantly, and playing “ice machine” with the cooler ice. I distinctly remember it . . . This is a game I made up, of course, where we took a piece of ice, crunched it up in our mouths, then spit it out in a cup. Brilliant right? Until, of course, I choked on one. Luckily it was ice, and it had a hole in the middle, but I won’t be playing ice machine again!
Still that’s what summer is all about right? Though some of my best memories are of the best of times, it’s also those times when things went awry that become the stuff of legend. The trips where the hotel turned out to be a rat trap or we couldn’t find the campground or my brother threw up. Hopefully your summer is filled with hot sunny days and memories gone slightly awry. But for the rainy ones, don’t forget to print this car—and all of our other houses and people too!
