Keeping the Driver Happy

My husband and I fall into stereotypical male female roles when it comes to RVing.  He drives.  I cook.  He dumps tanks.  I clean the inside of the trailer.  He washes the outside.  I do all of the trailer laundry.  It works for us!  I can tow a trailer.  I just don’t like it.  Also, I can only go forward.  Multiple people have tried to teach me to back a trailer.  I cannot get it to go where I tell it!  So, if I am driving, there are conditions.  The road needs to be pretty much straight and flat.  I don’t want to have to worry about trailer brakes and when to apply them.  And, if I have to go backwards, it’s a complete deal-breaker.  So, with all of my high-maintenance requirements, my husband does the driving.  

In our 16 years of RVing, I have learned that if the driver is happy, things go much better and the driving days are much more fun.  There are certain things that are completely out of my control (like other drivers) that will thwart my efforts.  If I can do my part to make the driving days go well, even the annoying things that happen on the road are more tolerable.  Here are some things that help us:

• Driver chooses what we listen to – My husband loves talk radio.  I hate it, but I put up with it for the drive because he’s taking me someplace cool with my trailer.  A small sacrifice on my part.   Raising kids and working with kid musicians has taught me to tune out a lot of things.  I apply everything I’ve learned over the years to tune out the talk radio.  I also find that if I stash a few magazines into the truck, it helps distract me.  My husband will change the radio to music for me after he gets his fill of the talk radio.  But, as soon as I fall asleep, he changes it back.  It’s funny little car battle we have going. 
• Driver chooses the lunch stop – For us, this involves much more In-N-Out Burger than I would eat in one trip.  Again, a small sacrifice to get to cool places! 
• Passenger finds food at the request of the driver – He’ll say, “I want to eat lunch in about half an hour or so.  Can you find an In-N-Out in the next town.”  (Or if there’s no In-N-Out I find out what they have and read him his choices).  Then, my job is to put the address into the GPS for directions and find 40 acres to park in.  
• Passenger helps look for hazards – My job whenever we’re leaving a parking lot, getting onto a road, or pulling into or out of a gas station is to help look for hazards.  I look out for height restrictions, sharp turns, other cars, landscape planters in parking lots, etc.  Sometimes, I even get out and help him navigate around things until he’s clear. 
• Keep road conversations fun – Most of the time, we talk about what’s going on the road, make fun of signs and names of towns, or things that are basically light-hearted.  We don’t have major discussion about things like our finances for instance.  
• Play the license plate game – We used to play this with the kids. We had a wooden game where the kids would flip over the license plates we found.  The kids got so OCD about this game one time that they wouldn’t start a new one until they got all 50 states.  It took close to a year to finish because we couldn’t find Rhode Island.  For Christmas, I bought them a Rhode Island license plate from ebay so we could start a new game.  Now, Rhode Island is like a free space in BINGO.  My husband and I now play using an app on my phone.  The game continues in whatever parking lots we’re in on the trip.  National Parks and RV Parks are great places to find license plates from all over the U.S.
• I make the trailer a comfortable place to flop when we arrive – While he’s outside hooking things up, I get the trailer ready for hanging out it.  I’m in charge of slide outs and setting up the inside of the trailer.  
• Make good meals – I love to cook.  I love planning the meals we’ll eat on the trip.  My husband has a list he made in the notes in his phone of favorite dinners.  He’ll  sometimes make requests for trips.  It depends on the length of the drive as to what we’ll have when we arrive in an RV park.  I try not to plan something that requires the grill or setting it up on a driving night to keep the work to a minimum unless he says he wants one of the meals we’ve planned that calls for grilling.

There are lots of ways to make your drive more pleasant.  Talk it over with your driver or passenger and decide what would make your driving days more fun.  Driving shouldn’t be stressful every time.  There will be times you can’t avoid a miserable day on the road.  We call those “Griswold Days” and try to find the humor in the situation.  Of course, sometimes those days don’t get funny until after the trip!  At any rate, don’t dwell on what all is going wrong.  Keep your focus on the adventure and your destination.  You’re on vacation!  Enjoy the ride!

Driver Edit: On non-travel days, the driver tries to keep the cook happy!  

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