Thelma and Louise / Smokey and the Bandit

Two vans, two moms, and six kids.  That is how we are driving across the country this time.  It is awesome and hilarious and exhausting.

Obviously, it's too many kids to be Thelma and Louise.  Plus, seducing Brad Pitt would clearly involve shaving my legs, so that's just out.

Anyway, the best part of this trip is that my friend Sandra bought walkie-talkies so that we can communicate between the two vans safely, instead of fumbling with our cell phones while driving.  So we're a little more Smokey and the Bandit than Thelma and Louise.

The first day of driving was pretty much nonstop rain, so we were too busy white-knuckling the steering wheels to really enjoy the walkie-talkies.  The next day the rain had finally stopped, and ohmygahd the walkie-talkies are so. much. fun.  They're super-handy for saying things like "that's a big 10-4, good buddy" and "where the hell is the nearest playland so these kids can get their fruit snack energy out?"

Even more hilarious?  When other people respond.  I really don't have a good enough grasp of 1970s technology to understand how these walkie-talkies work, but it involves being set to a certain channel.  If other people are on that channel, they can hear you talk and you can hear them.  This is similar to how you can have your privacy invaded and possibly your identify stolen if you don't buy the really expensive baby monitors that somehow block Uncle Creepy from listening in.

At least that's what they told me at the store when I was registering for baby stuff a million years ago, anyway.

While driving through Houston, we heard a taxi dispatcher checking car locations, for example. 

But then in Pensacola when we were trying to find a playland, some guy chimed in with "nah, there's no playland at that McDonald's."  Which was totally creepy because these things have a radius of eight freaking miles so how did he know where we were looking for playlands?

So obviously, Sandra was all happy that a local might have important information for us, like, where the hell is the nearest playland.  So, very politely, she asked, "Do you happen to know where there are any playlands around here, sir?"  Sadly, the guy did not know.  Because he was either eight miles away, or Uncle Creepy, or both.

Or maybe he was the cop that I drove past right after that.  Do police officers use walkie-talkies?  Is it possible that we have accidentally chosen the "cop channel" for our walkie-talkies? 

Or I guess that would be the "Smokey" channel.