[Anne's Family]

WARNING. This is a long post. I've got all this information in my pre-trip report in another forum, but I thought I'd just slip my 2 cents (or 2 bucks) in here.

We have a Dodge Sport Caravan. It’s smaller than a regular minivan by about a foot in length. Space is at a premium when you’re driving 12 hours and then another 10 hours (and that’s one way). For these trips, we carry “The Turtle” on the luggage rack. It’s a hard side “X-Cargo" luggage carrier we bought from Sears years ago. Better than the soft-sided ones when it rains. All our luggage, extra drinks, etc. go up top in the Turtle.

We always take out the middle seat of the van (we have a bench seat). The kids sit in the very back. Between the kids, on the seat, is our portable DVD player (with headphones - no other way to go!). Behind the seat is my “Medicine Bag” (I keep this packed to the hilt), my cosmetic bag, a bag with one change of clothes for everyone, pillows and blankets. We try to be sure that the seat will still recline so the kids can nap on the way.

Under the passenger seat is a drawer where I keep a large check file with a map of every state we’ll be passing through, as well as our AAA TripTik and auto insurance/registration as well as copies of our Annual Passes in case they’re lost. Also in this drawer is some “office essentials” such as scissors, tape, post it notes, note paper, paper clips, 2 pens, a mechanical pencil, a sharpie, travel size hand sanitizer gel, comb, glue stick, binder clips, tape measure, swiss army knife, Carmex, fingernail clippers, mints, extra sunglasses and a few extra bandaids. It sounds like a lot, but it all fits with room to spare.

We try to keep the area between the driver and passenger seat clear since I’m usually the one who has to hop out of my seat to help the kids with anything. I just keep a little tote bag of my reading things handy there.

In front of the kids / behind us (the now big open area) is for everything else we’ll need in the car. Behind the passenger seat, we keep a full-size cooler with cold snacks, water and juice pouches in it. We’ve thought about getting an electric cooler, but have always been afraid it would run the battery down when the car is off or get too warm if we turned it off completely. We don’t mind ice packs in the cooler. This makes it difficult to enter the car through the passenger sliding door, so it’s pretty much blocked off. The kids get in from the driver side sliding door. Behind the driver’s seat is a plastic 4-drawer “tower” I got from WalMart a while back. It is essentially four drawers that separate but fit on top of each other. We use clear packing tape to keep these connected in a tower and bungee them to the driver seat with the drawers facing the passenger seat. This is where I put the following: paper towels, plastic utensils, condiment packets (salt, pepper, sweet/sour sauce, etc.) , snack (including peanut butter, cheezits, Pringles, pop tarts, chocolate chip, cookies, gummies, Triscuits - garlic!, granola bars, small cereal boxes, powdered drink mix, and whatever looks good at the store right before we leave), car games, paper plates, wet wipes, 6 or 7 DVDs (ours and borrowed from friends and the library), art supplies, car cell phone charger, camera and film (enough for the trip there), earplugs (for me to nap in the car peacefully), 3 booklights, ziploc bags, paper cups, playing cards, book of card games (for those we haven’t learned yet!), straws, extra plastic grocery bags for trash can (which is next to the drawer unit), extra batteries and books. (Whew!)

In between the cooler and the drawer unit, right down the middle of the car, I usually lay down one of our camp mats. It’s very long so I have to tuck the foot of it under the kids’ seat too. This is a self-inflating mat I bought at Sam’s Club last year. When you unroll it, it airs up to about a 2 1/2” thickness (with padding inside) and you roll it back up to push the air out. It’s VERY comfortable and better than a rumbling hot car floor. It covers the tracks where the bench seat installs, too. We also use it at the hotel if the kids refuse to sleep together. I use it in the car to sit with the kids and play (while they stay in their seat belts), or for me or DH to lay down for a nap while on the road. The inside of our car resembles some kind of kids’ fort by the time we’re through. All we need is a blanket draped over it all. I store a stack of four divided trays under the kids’ bench seat for eating in the car on the run.