The trip up to Oregon

Last weekend, Tianna and I went up to Hines, Oregon for our nephew's baptism. You've probably never heard of Hines, Oregon, so let me give you a brief description. It's a small suburb of a small town two hours from any other sort of civilzation. The town itself seems to be doing well enough off, but I really have to wonder what inspired someone to move there in the first place. But anyway, that's not the point.

Tianna and I drove up to Twin Falls on Thursday night in order to split up a 10-hour drive. Friday, we met her parents, her brother Damian, and his kids Lexi (6) and Parker (4), and drove the rest of the way up. About an hour outside Boise, the road to Hines becomes quite windy, and since Tianna gets car-sick easily, she wanted to be in the front at that point. That meant I got to drive. I don't actually mind driving much, so it worked out fine.

There are some pretty vistas scattered sparesly along the drive, but for the most part it's a whole lot of sagebrush and scrub oak, and not much else. When we were about an hour from our destination, the kids started asking "Are we there yet?" about every five minutes, so we needed a distraction.

BJ: "Let's play the Alphabet Game!"

Everyone else: "... uh... right. The Alphabet Game in the middle of nowhere."

Now, I should point out that Tianna's family plays a variant of the Alphabet Game in which the letter you're looking for must be the first letter of the word you find, (with an exception granted for a few of the more difficult letters.) As if the game wasn't hard enough already.

BJ: "No, I'm serious. ... A as in Air!"

That started one of the more creative rounds of the Alphabet Game that I've ever played. It was a collaborative sort of thing; we all played as a team. S was for snow, J was for Juniper (though I'm not convinced we actually saw any Junipers, but I don't know enough to be able to say, so we went with it), and at one point the curve of the road ahead was suggested for the letter 'Z'. (Unfortunately, it was curved the wrong way; it was more like an 'S' than a 'Z'.)

So the next time you're in a car in the middle of nowhere with a couple of restless kids, just play the Alphabet Game!