Travel Game: I Spy Treasure Bags

Well, we're back.  We lived a crazy three weeks visiting lots of relatives and friends up North, and now we're settling back in to our daily routine.  When I planned this trip I originally had all kinds of good intentions for making busy bags and learning activities to make the time pass like these magnetic puzzles or these fun marble maze bags.

But when it came right down to it, after all the packing and last minute errands I only ended up with about 15 minutes to spare for that kind of thing.  I tried to make the most of it, and in the end, I think we got very good mileage (no pun intended) for the time and effort spent.

I Spy Treasure Bags

First, I brainstormed to come up with a list of things that we were likely to see on our trip but that weren't too common.  Things like:

a moving train

a barn with a silo

horses

a suspension bridge

a car-carrying truck

45 speed limit sign

a school bus

something that said the word "Tennessee" on it

Then I did quick google image searches to find a picture for each item.  I printed off a large size of each picture and pasted them onto lunch bags.  I put treats inside of each bag.

I also cut and pasted all of the images in smaller version onto a single document.  I gave one paper to each girl to refer to as she looked out the window.  If she spotted one of the items she let us know and I found the bag with that picture on it.  Inside of each bag was a set of surprise treats for everyone.  Some of the bags had food treats (fruit leather, granola bars, etc).  Other bags had little toys or books.  

Since we were going to be on the road for almost three days straight, I waited until the second day to introduce the I Spy Bags.  It took the girls longer to spot the items that I thought it might, which ended up being just fine.  It spread the treats out over two days, and until the last item was spotted they always had something they could do.  

I think they noticed a lot more scenery than they might have otherwise, and learned a few things along the way.  (now they know what a suspension bridge is, for example!)

What other fun travel games or tips for road trips with kids have you tried or heard of lately?  On our next road trip, little J will likely be old enough to get restless and we'll have THREE fidgety kids on our hands!

Grandparents' Traveling Game: Find Pandy

My friend R (who I recently quoted here) has parents who often travel. Recently, on a trip to China they came up with a fun way to share the story of their trip with their grandchildren. They took with them a small stuffed panda and included him in many of their pictures.
After they got home they used the pictures to make up a slide show. This allowed the kids to have fun finding the panda in each of the pictures (kind of like a personalized Where's Waldo!) while at the same time learning about a new culture and hearing about their grandparents' experiences.
I think this is such a special gift! Wouldn't this kind of thing also be a neat idea for overseas missionaries who have children's presentations to give in the States during their furloughs?

The Cathedral of Junk

Sometimes the best places to visit aren't the ones most widely advertised or the most expensive. I happened to run across an allusion to The Cathedral of Junk on the internet and thought it might be an interesting place to visit. We took some visiting family to go see it this past weekend, not knowing what to expect, and it turned out to become one of my favorite places to explore of all time! (It's hard to capture the scope of it here in the pictures) The Cathedral of Junk is not an established museum or tourist attraction- just a man here in Austin who has built an exquisite, quirky masterpiece out of several tons of junk in his backyard. The admission is free (but accepts donations); and it doesn't have set hours (just whenever the man happens to be around and available (so it's good to call ahead of time).I was thrilled to find such an unusual, fun place to take people for free right here in our hometown.Have any of you had similar experiences, discovering inexpensive off-the-beaten path, fun things to do with your family? I'd love to hear about them- especially so I can file them away for times when we might happen to be traveling through your part of the country!