You're cruising the open road; tunes playing, elbow out the window, hair blowing in the breeze and you're lookin' cool. Then you remember that you're driving a minivan and that you have a spouse and two kids in your vehicle and that it's 2013, not 1992 and you blame the Def Leppard for the realistic flashback.
You drive a minivan and you love it. Especially on family road trips. Here are five more reasons why (find the first five points here):
Hours of my kids' undivided attention — this is where I find out what's really going on in their heads. They're comfortably buckled in and can't escape my questions. It's also an opportunity to play games. Word games like "Would you rather?" (the cleaned up kids' version of course) or "Finish my story" or "Can you spot a cloud face?" You can see the jazzy cloud guy in the glasses snapping his fingers, right? The Dodge Grand Caravan has a "child-view mirror" so I can easily see the row behind me without even turning my head. This makes it easier to read their poker faces.
It's not all fun and games on a road trip. I had to squeeze in some work on our last vacation so I brought my laptop with me. The Caravan has power jacks and outlets for our phones, the iPad and my computer. I was able to charge my laptop on the road and get some work done. I went from WAHM (work at home mom) to WOWM (Work on wheels mom) and I liked it.
And how did I manage to get some quiet time amid the rounds of "Eye Spy" and listening to my son recite fifty facts about birds? The DVD player. Huzzah! Our van does not have one and this makes me sad. This van has a dual screen Blu-ray/DVD player with wireless headphones. My kids watched in silence and it was heaven. (Aw, just look at them enjoying Paranormal Activity.)
While they watched and I worked, my husband listened. Satellite radio is awesome! From comedy channels to sports radio to kids' stations to every genre of music, it's a feast for the ears. I checked out the channels and got stuck on Howard Stern Radio. For research purposes only, of course. It was all good until I saw my son in the kid view mirror with his headphones off and his eyebrows raised. Whoops. We also listen to audio books. Preloaded onto my iPhone, we use the auxillary input jack to listen to books aloud as we drive. I got the idea from my friend who "reads" dozens of books this way as she commutes. Smart.
A smooth ride is sweet, comfort is cool and techie gadgets are great, but the most important thing to me is safety. I'm hauling some pretty valuable cargo, so I appreciate that this minivan has state-of-the-art safety features. My husband's car has blind spots the size of Texas and it makes me nervous. The Dodge Grand Caravan has available Blind-Spot Monitoring which watches the blind zones on either side of the vehicle. When an object is detected, an indicator lights up in the exterior mirror and beeps. That's comforting. Like I said, precious....cargo.
In my next and final post I have five more fun aspects of travelling by minivan including why our minivan is really our home away from home.
Find these stories and more on YMC's ‘Tales From the Minivan’ page.
This is proudly sponsored by our friends at Dodge Canada.
dodge.ca/grandcaravan
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