You have been invited to go on a road trip with your mother’s brother’s brother-in-law. You have no aunts in the family. Who has invited you to travel with them?

ANSWER:

Because you have no aunts, this would be your uncle’s brother-in-law on your mom’s side. Your uncle would only have one brother-in-law (he may have many sisters-in-law). The brother-in-law would have to be your father.

When I was young we used to go on lots of family camping and caravanning trips, and needless to say me and my brother came up with quite a few games to play. We used to drive my parents crazy by constantly asking “Are we there yet?”, but games like the following kept us quiet for a few minutes.

The game is best played with at least two people. To play, each participant closes their eyes and shouts out a number between 1 and 10. You open your eyes and start counting cars that pass you by from the other direction. You count them off until you hit the number you chose. The car that passes you on your number is the car you are going to have when you grow up.

You can play best of 5, or just keep going till you’re satisfied. I narrowly missed out on a Lamborghini once, and much to my brothers amusement I had my fair share of bangers. Now I’m grown up I can say that thankfully my first car wasn’t any of the cars I ended up with in this game but it was still heaps of fun to play.

Play the game on your next road trip…Will you get the elusive horse and cart?

This is activity was submitted by Matthew Coughlan who works on the car hire team at travelsupermarket.com

Karli Jo has two dolls. One of the dolls is very expensive and costs $100 more than her second doll. Altogether, both dolls cost $101. How much does each of the dolls cost individually?

ANSWER:

The expensive doll is $100.50 while the cheaper doll is just $0.50.

Would you rather have five million dollars all at once or have someone give you one penny today and then double the number of pennies that you have each day for just 30 days?

ANSWER:

The mathematical formula for this is the starting amount (s) times the rate (r) raised to the power of the number of days (d). The formula looks like s*r^d. In this case it would be .01*2^30 which equals: $10,737,418.24. Over $10 million to go the slower route!

We arrived at Goblin Valley at around 10:30 in the morning. By this time the sun was up and it was already pretty warm outside. To be daring, we took our jogging/biking stroller along with us. It was going to be tough terrain for the stroller, but with the big wheels and high clearance, we figured it would survive. We actually were able to pack a medium sized, 2-gallon water cooler in the stroller along with a picnic blanket and a couple of folding camping chairs for my wife and me.

Most of our kids pausing their adventures for a quick snapshot

The kids had a great time walking several hundred feet and then stopping and climbing on the set of “Goblins” or rocks that they thought looked fun. Watch out McDonald’s Play Place, Mother Nature knows how to make the ultimate kids’ playground.

It was definitely a hot day, though. We try to visit Goblin Valley with “Early” in mind — “Early in the Year” and “Early in the day”. The kids each had their own water bottle. This was a MUST. They downed their bottles within an hour. We were lucky to have the stroller and the insulated water jug so that we could provide all of the refills that they needed during our hike.

Leading this crew of mine is like holding the world on my shoulders!

After about an hour into the adventure, we tried to find what little shade there was — provided only by towering piles of rock. There we broke out our picnic lunch. All of the hiking and climbing made the kids ravenous. Our family downed 10 peanut butter and honey sandwiches in one sitting!

One thing we did not prepare well for on our trip was having sunscreen. The red rocks of the goblin valley desert landscape seems to reflect and magnify the sun’s intensity. After two hours of visiting the valley, we knew we would be dealing with some sunburns.

The kids fetching our 5-year old from her daring hike

As the one-o’clock hour approached, we decided we had had enough sun and exercise for the day. We headed back to the Suburban to rest our weary legs and to let the youngest ones take a much needed nap. The stroller had been a good idea, though we were the only ones with the contraption. It worked well, but it was hard to push back up the steep hill that takes you to the Goblin Valley parking lot, but we made it.

The RadRoadTrips Family at Goblin Valley

The kids had a blast during our hike at Goblin Valley. We added a detour at the end of our trip to visit a dinosaur quarry nearby. That was a fun, restful experience compared to the hike at Goblin Valley. The kids were able to see real dinosaur bones in the process of being excavated by professional paleontologists.

It was a very great day trip for our family. Goblin Valley is a must see if you are in the vicinity of Southern Utah and you have younger kids that just don’t seem to run out of energy. We guarantee that by the time you are done visiting the state park, your kids will be happy to sit and rest in a cool vehicle!

About Goblin Valley

Goblin Valley was formed by years of wind and water carving unique goblin-like sculptures out of rock. This process has created an outdoor playground of sorts that inspires imagination and adventure. The landscape offers unlimited walking, exploring, or hiking opportunities. You can easily spend several hours hiking, playing and enjoying the goblin forms that you find here.

Near the entrance to the park there are excellent off-highway vehicle and biking routes to explore. Please note that ATV’s and bikes are not allowed inside the park itself (beyond the parking lot).

This amazing valley was first discovered by cowboys searching for cattle. Several years later, Arthur Chaffin, owner/operator of the Hite Ferry on the Colorado River, and two companions were searching for an alternate route between two Utah cities, Green River and Cainsville. They stumbled upon this alien landscape were awed by what they saw — a valley of strange-shaped rock formations surrounded by a wall of eroded cliffs.

Directions:
– 24 miles south of I-70 on Highway 24, turn at Temple Mountain junction, follow signs 12 miles to park.
– 20 miles north of the town of Hanksville on Highway 24, turn at Temple Mountain junction, follow signs 12 miles to park.

There is a nearby park & campground with sites that can accommodate large motor homes, interior paved roads, observation overlook, a new culinary water system, modern rest rooms, hot water showers, and a sanitary dump station. Each spacious campsite has a picnic table, paved parking pad and barbecue grill.

Fees for the park: $7 day fee per vehicle & $16 camping fee.

You can contact the state park for more details:
Goblin Valley State Park
P.O. Box 637
Green River, UT 84525-0637
(435) 275-4584
parkcomment@utah.gov
http://stateparks.utah.gov/parks/goblin-valley

Throughout the history of the United States, the age-old song of “Yankee Doodle” has been sung by parents and children alike. It’s catchy tune puts a smile on anyone who sings it.

Although “Yankee Doodle” was a British song set out to mock the organization of the Yankee’s in early US history, it has been widely sung and enjoyed by American’s all over.

“Doodle” was a term that meant something like a fool, or inept person. The term “Macaroni” that has often sent school children giggling is actually a reference to a fashionable English hat at the time.

Although the song has gone through many revisions and adaptations through its history, we will include a select version of the tune. You can print the lyrics below to have a sing along in the car on your next road trip with the kids, or you can add our version of the song to your MP3 player and sing along with the kids.

Here are the lyrics:

Fath’r and I went down to camp
along with Captain Goodin’,
And there we saw the mend and boys
as thick as hasty puddin’

Yankee Doodle, keep it up!
Yankee Doodle dandy.
Mind the music and the step,
and with the girls be handy.

There we saw a thousand men,
as rich as Squier David;
And what they wasted ev’ry day,
I wish it could be saved.

Yankee Doodle, keep it up!
Yankee Doodle dandy.
Mind the music and the step,
and with the girls be handy.

Yankee Doodle went to London
riding on a pony,
He stuck a feather in his cap
and called it macaroni.

Yankee Doodle, keep it up!
Yankee Doodle dandy.
Mind the music and the step,
and with the girls be handy.

~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-~-

Feel free to download the song as played and performed by two of our kids:

Use the tool below to generate the maze that fits your needs.

Reversal (or Reverse-It) is a fun little word game that you can change and adapt with every different game.

Instructions:
You need at least two players for this game. You will play two rounds.

• ROUND 1: You will choose a topic for this round. It could be names of people you know, names of places, names of famous people, names of foods, etc. The object of Round 1 is to find a correct word or two words (eg. For names: Sam Smith) for every letter of the alphabet. Only the first word would need to start with the corresponding letter. Tally up the number of letters completed for the round.
• ROUND 2: Swap papers so that everyone has a paper that was not theirs for the prior round. For this round you can choose to either use the same topic as Round 1 or use a different topic. Now, for every row in Round 1, take the last letter of each word and place it as the first letter for each corresponding row in Round 2. Play the game as before and tally up the number of rows completed.

After the two rounds are completed, add up points for each player from Rounds 1 & 2. The person with the largest total from both rounds combined is the winner.

Reversal Example

Your latest road trip has taken you to the North Pole.  You get out and put on a blindfold.  You spin around two times.  Then you take 10 steps forward.  Finally you turn 90 degrees to the left.  What do you see?

ANSWER:

You don’t see anything because you are blindfolded.