Show season – livestock and horse – is upon us. Regardless of road trip length, many families don’t always come out happy on the other side.
Three helpful tips to surviving show-season road trips:
Make lists. And follow them.
It’s easy enough to make lists, but not so easy to adhere to them. Put your pen to paper when making plans, especially during family meetings. Make duplicate lists, too. It’s usually helpful to make two list of essential items: one to check of before leaving and another to check off before returning.
Additionally, it’s helpful to have different lists for specific family members to ensure one person is not loaded with too many tasks. (Especially moms. They have a lot of their plates regardless of road trip status). Anyone who has made a list before knows the satisfaction of checking off completed tasks, which provides motivation to keep going.
Go shopping well in advance.
What we often do is try to think of purchases while in the store; then we come home and devise another list of forgotten items. Each person has his or her own preferences and family quarrels are often related to forgetting another person’s preferences. Don’t tell yourself you’ll remember something when it pops in your head; write it down.
Pack lots of entertainment.
Entertain does not mean only electronics. There are various forms of entertainment that don’t strain eyes or yield a headache from staring at a screen for too long. Though not everybody is comfortable reading on the road, books are still an option— ask around for a novel recommendation, or pack a stack of magazines with the latest Hollywood gossip. Furthermore, there are ample DIY methods to keep younger kids entertained that include comics, crayons and even handicrafts.
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Devika Singh is the 2017 Arizona National Horse Show digital media intern. Originally hailing from India and now residing in Sugar Land, Texas, she studied agricultural communications at Texas A&M where she was a member of the Agricultural Communicators of Tomorrow student organization.