Item #13 on my Baby Bucket List is as follows, and I quote:

“Go on a loooong road trip. Not one of those 5-hour dealies, like the St. Louis to Chicago trip we do every other weekend.”

A couple of weekends ago, we coaxed the Stratus into rumbling all the way up to Michigan, a 7.5 hour drive, and this weekend we are somehow hoping she’ll be able to bump and grind her way to the middle of Iowa for my cousin’s wedding, another 7.5 hour (or longer) drive.

You guys, I’m just going to go ahead and cross this road trip goal off the list:

CHECK!

Both trips are over 5 hours, and honestly, I don’t really enjoy driving much longer than that.

Road trips can be fun, but I seem to have major issues with butt comfort (or lack thereof) when I’m driving. Also, I get stressed easily on the highway and in the presence of roaring metal monsters of death trucks, so I’m constantly tense and can’t relax, which consequently seems to be a good workout for my hamstrings, but still.

I also have a major issue with the audio portion of road trips. The Stratus (bless her heart) hails from a time (2002) when non-luxury cars did not come equipped with iPod docks. I have a handy little hookup thingy that looks like a thermometer on a wire that I can plug into my cigarette lighter (do new cars still come with those?), but it’s kind of a pain.

Also, if there is any sort of sporting event on a station that gets any sort of reception, Will insists on listening to that while I try to not have a seizure caused by the incessant buzzing that accompanies AM radio broadcasts picked up in the cornfields of middle America.

And no, books on tape are not an option. The voice of the reader always starts to annoy me after about 5 minutes. It helps if the person is British, but I still have a problem with it.

If there’s rain, snow, wind, fog, an excessive amount of sunshine, darkness, construction, bumpy roads, traffic jams or two-lane highways, I become a defeated, stressed-out puddle of “I can’t do this,” “This sucks,” and “We’re never going to get there.” It’s not pleasant.

So now that it’s crossed off the Baby Bucket List, I’m officially not planning on going on any more road trips in the near future. Well, after this weekend I guess.

I’m going to go stock up on Red Bull and Twizzlers so I can self-medicate when I start to feel a meltdown coming on. Wish me luck!