Road Tripping: Audio Book Recs?

Wednesday, September 10, 2014

I am gearing up for a road trip to Cincy to see my sister and attend a college teammates' wedding. (They grow up so fast!)

So, yesterday I got my headlight replaced that had been out for about a month (oops!) and today I'm getting my oil changed.

Does anyone else walk into a car services place and immediately feel like a fatuous moron? Just me? I always feel as if I have "I know nothing about cars" tattooed across my forehead.

The headlight ended up costing only 11 bucks - but if they would have charged me $100, I would have just handed it over to the mechanic without question. Are you sure you don't also want my diamond earrings? They're yours! How about my right arm? I don't really need it. Thanks for fixing the vehicle I wholeheartedly rely on for my daily existence and know next to nothing about maintaining.

I inadvertently did something different yesterday that made me feel minutely better about the male-dominated car service space –  I wore a Detroit Lions tee, resulting in 2 conversations with mechanics about Monday night football. Being able to intelligently converse with the people working on my car made me feel slightly less idiotic.

Note: I am a Steelers fan, but my boyfriend roots for Detroit because he likes torturing himself [more proof: he also dates me :)]

So, now that my car is (fingers crossed) ready for the 7-hour journey to the nasty 'Natti, I'm thinking about road trip entertainment. Not that the corn fields of Illinois and Indiana don't offer invigorating scenery.

Stephen and I already have selected these 3 CD's for our listening pleasure:

(Yes I still listen exclusively to CD's in my car...because don't we all secretly wish it was still 1999?)
But I wanted to know: do any of you have awesome audio book recommendations?

I love audio books, because when I was growing up, my family of six drove everywhere in our Mini Van. I mean everywhere. Audio books are the only reason all six of us lived, unharmed, to talk about those road trips.

We once drove from Pittsburgh to Yellowstone National Park. Stopping in Omaha for my twin sister to high jump at the Junior Olympic national championships. Naturally.

My parents, apparently, also loved torturing themselves ;)
I have distinct memories of the AC in our Mini Van breaking while driving through Nebraska cornfields. (So many states covered in corn! You Northeasterners/West Coasters just don't understand.)

My family listened to quite a few different audio books (to this day, I've never read The Hobbit, I've only heard it.) But by far the best ones were Jim Dale's audio narratives of all 7 Harry Potters. Obviously. If you haven't listened to them already - I highly recommend them for road trips. He is incredible! You won't want your painstakingly long road trip to end. (Ok, that might be a slight over-exaggeration.)

We actually had the first few HP books on tape. I remember sitting in the back of the car, and my youngest sister asking my mom to "Play the Harry Potter tape!!!" ....before we even backed out of our driveway. Patience isn't a strong suit in my family.

So, I'm curious, what's your favorite audio book? Any Audio books you recommend for road trips? I'd love to hear your recommendations in the comments below!

2 comments:

  1. I liked these 2 on recent trips.
    http://www.amazon.com/My-Story/dp/B00ELPUG9A My Story by Elizabeth Smart
    It's interesting and it makes the time go really quickly. Probably about the right length for to and from Cincinnati (it's long)! Coolest part? It's actually her reading it.

    http://www.goodreads.com/book/show/12878300-fearless.(Fearless: Eric Blehm) Not a book I would ever read, but it topped the "most popular nonfiction" section of the Wisconsin online library, so I gave it a shot. It's also really interesting, and not about something I knew anything about.

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  2. We really enjoyed listening to The Life and Times of the Thunderbolt Kid by Bill Bryson when we drove from Pittsburgh to Nebraska last fall. It seemed appropriate, since it’s about the author’s childhood in Des Moines, Iowa, and we drove right through the town! It was extremely entertaining and well read by the author. Of course, I still have The Hobbit read by Rob Inglis on tape if you want to borrow it. No one is as good as Jim Dale, but Rob Inglis comes pretty darn close! : )

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