Summer Travel: Get Road Ready Contest

We had big plans for our summer vacation this year: We were going to visit my husband's family in Wales.

That may not sound like much (given how many times we HAVE traveled to see my in-laws over the years). Let's change the emphasis: We had big plans for our SUMMER vacation.

You see, we have not been to the UK in the summer since Megan was a 1st grader (she just finished her first year of middle school). We tend to go in the winter, when flights are cheap. Unfortunately, that's also when the weather is cold and dreary, many of the tourist attractions are closed, and the sun starts to set around 4:00 p.m.

I really wanted to go this summer, but it was not meant to be. With crude oil at record highs and the American dollar at record lows, traveling to Europe is simply too expensive for our family this year (even though we save on hotels by staying with family).

So instead of one big vacation, we are taking several little road trips.

The folks at Ask Patty (the women's automotive website) and GetRoadReady.com produced this nifty video with tips to help you prepare for a family road trip:

GetRoadReady.com is a terrific resource for planning a vacation on the road: It's got a Rand McNally trip planning tool, which offers suggestions of attractions to see along the way... checklists... and games you can download for the kids.

I'm fortunate that my daughter is an excellent traveling companion. She has to be: We've been packing her off on trans-Atlantic flights since she was an infant... and she has to sit quietly in a car for seven hours to see my side of the family.

She's good. She's really good. But she's still a kid, and an only child at that -- and she gets bored. For years, I resisted the idea of buying her any kind of handheld game consoles (after all, I didn't have anything like that when I was growing up; why does she need one?)...

...and then, the kind folks at Nintendo gave us each one. And the first time we made the drive from Los Angeles to Sacramento, I was in shock: The DS kept her occupied and happy. We were even able to play games together, using the WiFi function (and made up some of our own using PictoChat).

All I could think was: Why didn't I get one of these for her sooner?

And now, we prepare for a family road trip by getting the car checked out... packing lots of snacks... and including lots of games for our Nintendo DS.

So, in honor of the start of summer road trip season, I am having a contest. I will be giving away TWO first prizes of a Nintendo DS PLUS their new Crosswords DS game (where your kids and YOU can test your word play skills on a variety of puzzles, word searches and anagrams)... AND I'm giving away one second prize of a Get Road Ready kit, with a variety of products to make getting there easier.

To Enter: I want to hear about YOUR most memorable road trip! You may tell me about it in a comment to this post, or write about it on your own blog and then link to it in a comment on this post.

Each comment with a road trip story (between now and June 30) will be an entry in a random drawing, with winners announced on July 1.

Get ready - get set - go!