Road Trip games to play at home

I so love Sunset Magazine’s articles about road trips. The photographs draw you in, making for compulsive page-turning. A teardrop camper poised on the edge of the Pacific Ocean. A family picnicking in a grove of redwoods. A birder or a photographer, binoculars or camera in hand, dwarfed by sand-sculpted rock forms in the desert Southwest. You can hear the twittering birds and feel the dry wind, smell the pine-needles under foot and the ozone tossed up by crashing surf.

Ah, but there’s the little problem of getting there, wherever ‘there’ might be.

For that, we need the road, and the hours spent on it can be tedious for the passengers. (I’m presuming the driver is alert, paying attention to those twists and turns between the big trees, counting the mile-markers to the desert exit.) When I was a road-trip passenger — back when the Oldsmobile 88 station wagon was state of the art — my mother kept a little pocket-notebook with puzzles, quizzes and games. She also brought it on long train trips from New York to Colorado, in case the coloring books supplied by the railroad and my latest Ranger Rick Magazine palled.

I’m going on a picnic

Perhaps you’ve played this one yourself, as a kid or the parent quieting the kids… Player 1 says “I’m going on a picnic, and I’m bringing…” and then names a foodstuff (or picnic-adjacent thing like basket or rug or paper plates) whose name begins with the letter ‘A’. Player 2 repeats “I’m going on a picnic, and I’m bringing…” and names something beginning with the letter ‘B’, and repeats the letter ‘A’ item. The next players must add items in alphabetical order, each one repeating the previous items.

If you’re unfamiliar with the game, think The 12 Days of Christmas, but with fruit, veg and sandwich fixings. And no set pattern: each time you play, the picnic basket contents are likely to be entirely different.

At the end of the summer, I’ll be braving an airport and a ten-hour plane ride to Britain for a visit driven by necessity. I’m most looking forward to being in the same time zone as my dear British friends. We may be limited to quarantinis on Zoom, instead of our usual wonderful dinners in London. That’s all right. I’ll actually feel more comfortable having a martini since it won’t be 8am Pacific Daylight Time.

But despite the great progress made in vaccination rates — in both countries — I fully expect Britain’s quarantine rules will still be in place. I expect to hustle from airport baggage claim to car hire, and without stopping, hie myself to my lodging. Once lodged, I expect I’ll be expected to stay put for 10 days — unless I can “test out” on day 5 or 6. The trip is all of 11 days long, so I want to make my quarantine as delightful as possible.

How does the picnic game come into this?

In an ordinary year, I’d be staying with friends, and in some bed & breakfasts or the odd hotel or inn. This not being an ordinary year, I’m settling into an AirBnB for the duration. I’ll enjoy its pocket-sized orchard and garden bench with a vista over the valley of the River Stour. If it mizzles or rains, I’ll park myself at the scrubbed, wooden kitchen table — so reminiscent of Totleigh Barton — and write. Every evening, out will come the laptop for quarantinis.

Likewise, in an ordinary year, one of the highlights of my trip is a leisurely amble through a supermarket. I’m on a quest for old friends I can’t find at home: small-chunk ploughman’s pickle! Scotch eggs! Twiglets! Old Peculier!

Since I rarely have a kitchen to play in, my purchases are destined for a box shipped home or a picnic on the side of the road. However, with the prospect of quarantine in a cottage with a chef-style kitchen, my shopping list can expand to include lamb chops and salad greens. The catch is that — according to the rules of quarantine — I cannot browse the market in person. No, I must rely on someone else to sniff the melon and choose the cheese. Some lucky person will even get to stand in the wine and beer aisle, dithering happily between a Chenin Blanc from the Loire vs. brown ale from Newquay.

The nearest I can come to Nirvana is virtually browsing my chosen market’s aisles. But at least, by using Britain’s equivalent of click-n-pick, I can stock my 10-day kitchen with whatever my heart desires. After all, it’s free for shopping baskets worth £45 or more.

Follow along over the summer as plan my shopping basket. Suggestions in the comments are welcome.

Banner photo by Taryn Elliott from Pexels