9 Hours, 2 Pottie Breaks and 17 Road Kills

Anyone that has children and taken a road trip knows that you can quickly run out of activities to keep the little ones occupied and distracted from the endless questioning of "are we there yet?" This weekend we took a road trip with our girls to Gatlinburg for an annual cheer leading competition that my daughter is a part of about four and a half hours away. Upon leaving our little yappers with my parents to dog sit for four days, they suggested we let the girls play the Road Kill Game. I know there are plenty of road trip games out there, but I doubt you will find this game in any activity books as it is one of my dad's originals and errs on the side of a little morbid and demented of a game to share with children. In the Road Kill Game, you simply keep a running tally of all the dead animals you find along the way of your trip. The first time I ever heard of the game was when my nieces road from Iowa with my dad and then drove back with my sister resulting in an approximate 28 hour round trip. They took their list, compiled the results and sent it to my dad in a nice tallying of all the dead exhibits they found. My dad was so impressed with it and the girls' follow through, that it became a framed and displayed souvenir of the summer trip. I have to admit I was rather impressed by the variety of specimens of their road side observations. So being that I failed to pack any other car activities, the Road Kill Game it was for our journey. I'll also admit that it does feel a little bad when you get excited to see a dead animal so you can tally it down on your notepad, but it did keep the girls entertained. Our list would have been much longer, but McKenna and I took very long naps on the return trip and probably missed a lot of victims. So here is our compiling of our 9 hour round trip Road Kill Game:

Gatilinburg Road Trip December 2011
Flower Pots: 2 (Yes, we realize that flower pots were not alive in the first place, but thought as ran over as they were they had been officially killed!)
Unidentified: 4
Dogs: 3 (This made us the saddest being the dog lovers we are)
Rabbit: 1
Chickens: 4 (We are guessing a cage door didn't get quite closed on a chicken truck.)
Deer: 2 (These make the messiest of Road Kill.)
Cat: 1
Total: 17 with the "Unidentifieds" winning. Yes, there are "winners," I said it was morbid. As McKenna would keep the tally, she would periodically update us on who was in the lead and who was trailing. Again, a little morbid, a little demented of a game, but the road kill is there so you might as well get the kids looking out the windows and using what's there in front, or rather on the side of you, to keep them occupied, using their animal, spelling and math skills. Happy traveling!