DUKE CANNON'S GUIDE TO A SUCCESSFUL FAMILY ROAD TRIP

Aside from the Indy 500 and other high-stakes races, very few four-wheeled excursions will test a hard-working fellow's mettle like the time-honored pastime of piling the family into the car and hitting the road on a family vacation during the summer. To keep all your remaining hairs planted in your skull, we’ve devised the following tips for packing up the brood and traversing America’s highways and byways with your sanity intact. 

Whether you are commandeering a wagon or sedan, truck or SUV, the tank that forges ahead into battle needs to be in tip-top shape, which entails a fluid top-off, a gas fill-up, a windshield cleared of bug splatter, tire pressure checked, and so on. And don’t neglect the glove box: Aside from the usual colorful array of extra fuses, we strongly recommend an actual printed, physical map or atlas for those lonely stretches or road where cell phone service is nonexistent. Because although we are quite capable at navigating our course by the sun, most are not.

This is an artform in itself; a real-life version of Tetris than can chew up the inexperienced. Our advice is to load the heavy stuff on the bottom (bowling balls, horseshoes, what have you), then drape the lightweight stuff (bamboo fishing rod, extra beef jerky) on the top layer before snapping the trunk shut and heading out. 

For sale at travel centers across this great land are leather bandanas, pink felt cowboy hats, taxidermied rattlesnakes and, of course, all manner of foodstuff. We recommend you make a point of savoring the regional delicacies, which include consumables such as locally sourced ostrich jerky, boiled peanuts, and many curious iterations of saltwater taffy (the chicken and waffles flavor is surprisingly solid). If the brood isn’t entirely sustained, do not fret: at least there will be entertainment value in watching their noses wrinkle and listening to their overly dramatic “Ewwws.”

We get it: in another life you were a legendary trucker with an iron bladder and can probably make it coast-to-coast without stopping. But your family most likely isn’t built like that, and will need to stop and use the facilities once in a while (not to mention stretch their legs). Accommodate them, please.

Kids are not stupid. They know that once you are a couple hundred miles out of town there’s no way in Hades that you are going to make good on your threat to turn the car around right this moment and go back home. Unless of course they keep kicking the back of your seat, in which case they can bet their butts that you will turn around right this moment and drive back home, even if you’re at the rim of the Grand Canyon but haven’t yet unloaded, and home is a couple thousand miles away in Bayonne, New Jersey.

Much of a road trip is anticipating the glory of the final destination. If said destination is another jaunt to the National Mustard Museum in Middleton, Wisconsin, or a first-time visit to the Herbert Hoover Presidential Library and Museum in West Branch, Iowa, troop morale might be understandably low. But set your sails toward classic heavy hitters like the aforementioned very big canyon, Mt. Rushmore, or a large amusement park with beloved cartoon characters, and everyone’s spirits will most likely stay buoyant (that said, remember that whether it’s twine, tinfoil, or livestock, you can’t go wrong with any destination that has “World’s Biggest” in the name).