License Plate Game
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Road Trip Fun: The License Plate Game
When I think of the things I like -- and the way I do things -- I realize that many habits were formed when I was a child. Take broccoli, for example. My mother always served it cold. She cooked it and then chilled it; we ate it salad-style, with lemon and a little olive oil. I loved it. When I went to school and received a tray displaying a little bowl of warm, mushy green, I didn't know what to do with it. I was completely nonplussed by what confronted me.
The same childhood that taught me to love cold, lemony broccoli taught me to love playing car games, especially the license plate game.
We lived in Maryland and several times a year we would make the trip to New York to visit my grandparents. Nowadays, it's a pretty easy 5-hour drive. Then, absent the highways that later would be built, the trip took 9 hours. On those trips, my parents worked very hard to entertain me and my sister. For a while, we amused ourselves by singing every patriotic song we knew -- beginning with Yankee Doodle and winding up with America the Beautiful, with descant. Sometimes we didn't get all the way through our repertoire. When my father had had enough (we were not gifted with tuneful voices), he turned up the radio really loud and we knew it was time to do something else.
That something else usually was the license plate game. It was our favorite car activity and we kept at it as long as there was light by which to spot the plates.
After I was grown, many years passed without me playing the license plate game or even thinking about it. And then, while driving home from Philadelphia...
License Plate Spotting
Swollen raindrops plopped against the windshield of our station wagon as my husband and I made the return trip from Philly to our home in Maryland. I knew I should be grateful that the precipitation wasn't the snow we'd been laden with over the last few weeks, but I wasn't. I was cranky about the 3 hour drive and already missing my daughter, whom we'd just dropped off at her dorm after the break.Watching the road rewind ahead of me and lulled by the car motion and the gentle squeak of the windshield wipers, I kept nodding off. If I had been a child, I would have given in to sleep, but the adult me felt guilty about leaving my husband to do the driving without even the passive support of a semi-conscious wife. So I forced my eyes open and stared fixedly at trees, signs, and passing cars in an effort to stay awake.
A casual glance to my right fell on the license plate of the car next to us. Florida. An unexpected jolt of adrenalin catapulted me back to endless childhood car trips and memories of my favorite traveling game (always played after my sister and I had exhausted our repertoire of patriotic songs or exhausted our parents' patience for hearing them).
Turns out, it's still my favorite traveling game.
Still My Favorite Game
I Even Play the License Plate Game Alone
For whatever reason, spotting license plates from different places still entertains me. It has nothing to do with competition - I was the only one playing in the car that day. Whatever the reason, I enjoyed myself enormously.As always, plates for some states could be counted on due to simple geography. We were driving from Pennsylvania to Maryland, and I knew I could expect to see plates from those states plus Delaware, New Jersey, Virginia, and Washington, DC - with a reasonable chance at New York and North Carolina. Even South Carolina and Georgia fell into the probable category. But when I encountered Louisiana, Montana, California I was as excited as a puppy whose owner has just taken out its leash. And I'm pretty sure I shrieked a little when I spotted the crown jewel in my little game: Alaska! While my naturally phlegmatic husband did not share my excitement, he was a good sport about it. He helped me look and on two occasions, he even speeded up to get closer to a car whose plate I couldn't read. If I'd been a hunting dog I would have been barking.
Of course, my adult game differed somewhat from the ones I played when I was younger. As a child, I would find a plate, call it, and move on. Today, my organized, slightly anal adult self had to impose a veneer of order. It wasn't enough to spot the plates. I had to remember them and be able to recite them back. In alphabetical order. I believe I sang them to the tune of America the Beautiful.
I had so much fun I didn't notice when the rain stopped. And I was reminded that joyful things come unexpectedly and are gifts to be treasured.
We arrived home nearly eight hours after we'd left home. We were still tired. But cranky? Not so much.
P.S. The states: Alaska, California, Connecticut, Delaware, Florida, Georgia, Louisiana, Maryland, Massachusetts, Michigan, Montana, Nevada, New Jersey, New York, North Carolina, Ohio, Pennsylvania, Rhode Island, South Carolina, and Virginia; plus Washington, DC and Ontario, Canada.
How to Play the License Plate Game
So how do you play the game? It's pretty simple. Look out the car window and spot license plates from as many different places as possible. In the U.S., that pretty much means the 50 states plus Washington DC and Canada.
The MAIN RULE is that to be counted a license plate must be on a car that's moving -- on the road. Being stopped at a toll booth or at a light counts because it's still "in transit." Parked cars in lots or on the street do not count. The game gets suspended during pit stops. NOTE: If you're playing with younger children, I recommend allowing the parking lot cars to count -- they'll need the help and the boost.
In terms of keeping score (if you choose to do this), you can either designate a person to write things down or have each person can keep his/her own list. Don't forget pencils!
The table list below can be cut and pasted into your wordprocessing program and printed off. You may make as many copies as you need.
License Plate Game Score Card
Print as Many as You Need
Alabama
Alaska
Arizona
Arkansas
California
Colorado
Connecticut
Delaware
Florida
Georgia
Hawaii
Idaho
Illinois
Indiana
Iowa
Kansas
Kentucky
Louisiana
Maine
Maryland
Massachusetts
Michigan
Minnesota
Mississippi
Missouri
Montana
Nebraska
Nevada
New Hampshire
New Jersey
New Mexico
New York
North Carolina
North Dakota
Ohio
Oklahoma
Oregon
Pennsylvania
Rhode Island
South Carolina
South Dakota
Tennessee
Texas
Utah
Vermont
Virginia
Washington
Washington DC
West Virginia
Wisconsin
Wyoming
Places to Go, Sights to See
Poll: What's Your Fave Activity...
...on a Car Trip
Resources
Vanity License Plates
Entertaining site features more than 1,000 examples of actual vanity license plates as well as the results of a creative contest to come up with fantasy plates for a famous person. Example: a plate for Judy Garland: NTM NTM. Also featured is the story of Oedipus the King (of the road) told completely in license plates.
Vanity License Plate Generator
Vanity license plates are kind of like Twitter for your car. This generator is a great little tool for making a license plate that embodies your essence. Enter a phrase you want converted and this little program will transform it to a shortened version you can use on your own license plate.
Mom's Minivan
This road-trip site offers a tremendous array of resources to help you get the most from your next car vacation. Much of it is kid-oriented, as is clear from the name. Among the offerings are many free, printable car games, including several varieties of car bingo.
Free Printable Travel Games
This site offers 8 printable bingo cards that work well for younger children. They are full-color and have pictures rather than words.
Road-Trip Bingo Games
This site lets you create bingo cards with any 25 items you choose. It does offer a suggested group, so you don't have to do any work if you prefer not to. But if you are going someplace that has some special features you want your seatmates to watch for, this will let you create cards that are print-ready.
Exit 3 on the New Jersey Turnpike
On family trips to New York we always stopped at the Walt Whitman rest stop -- exit 3 on the New Jersey Turnpike. Unlike today, where there is a foodcourt set-up, back then you were seated in a restaurant and food was served to you. The restaurant was Howard Johnson and the orange-tiled roof always gave a little thrill when it came into view. My favorite meal was burger, chocolate milkshake, and apple pie (don't judge). It was part of the experience to be able to order whatever we wanted, without the usual careful dietary monitoring. This was vacation, after all. I have to give my parents a lot of credit, because they never interfered with my choices even though they knew they would be revisiting the meal when I threw it all up an hour later. I was horribly prone to motion sickness and I didn't manage a spew-free trip until I was 13.
What do you remember about childhood trips? Share your memories here.
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"I Spy"
When I was a child, we used to play "I spy" on long car trips. Each person would take it in turns to say, "I spy with my little eye, something beginning with "Letter of the alphabet". The others would try to guess and the first to guess correctly was the winner of that round. This game would go on for ages. We used to play this with our children as well when they were young.13 points
2
PUNCH BUGGY! everyonen knows this .............right? where yoiu spot and yell out the color of the vw bug and punch someone in the car before they get you.11 points
3
Alphabet Game
Starting with the letter A, watch for a road sign or store sign, etc. with that letter in it. After you find the A, then look for the letter B. And, so on, until you go throught the alphabet. This game works better with 2 people, looking on opposite sides of the car. The one who finds the letter Z first, is the winner. It can be played with only one, but more fun with 2. We always played this on long trips when I was a kid.6 points
4
Packing the Car
When we were really little, trips were made in a 1956 Chevy Bel Air -- a car with a massive trunk. I recall my father packing/repacking the trunk (muttering imprecations as he did) to squeeze in everything. Grandparent visits were long, and my mother packed pretty much everything: bulky baby carriage, coats/boots, beach paraphernalia, stuffed animals, dolls... I think we even brought the Easy Bake Oven one year. Our brick of a pullman suitcase had to go in first or it wouldn't fit.3 points
5
Travel songs
On very long trips in order to just stay awake we would sing at the top of our lungs "100 Bottles of Beer" and TV show tunes like The Brady Bunch and Gilligan's Island etc...2 points
6
Cow cow sheep
In England we don't have license plates with differing shires (sadly) so we used to spot animals along the way. You got a point for every sheep or cow, 5 if they were in an unusual situation (I once got 15 for three sheep perched on a rock face) or hard to spot in some way. Chickens were 5 points, ducks and geese 10, rabbits 20, deer 50, and wallabies (there's a herd of wild ones near us) were 80. You had to call out and give the rough direction - 'left side up the hill!', 'right side behind...1 point
7
Acura MDX Wiper Size
Find the size of your wipers. Follow Acura MDX Wiper Size Chart.1 point
8
LONG trips to new homes every 3 to 5 Years
I was a military brat as a child. My dad had us moving quite a bit. The move I remember the most was taken when I was 14. We traveled from Pennsylvania to Alabama to California by automobile; then on to the Philippines via jet air plane. I kept a journal along the way. I wish I still had it.0 points
9
Never had such a fun trip but
I remmeber making stupid contests with my brothers - who can drink more lemonade, who can yell louder.. good old times, lol0 points
10
Another thing I we used to do
Pushing dad to hit the 150 m/h :) we were speed addicts even back in the day0 points
11
Count From 1 - 100
Using #s on sign posts, license plates and registration numbers, find numbers 1 through 100 ... in order!!0 points
Fantastic License Plate Products
Find more great license plate products at designturnpike's Store at Zazzle
Car Games Suggested by Readers
Lots of Great Ideas!
Lots of people took time to share their own travel activities. Here are some of the ideas suggested:
- We used to play license plate poker, where the numbers were just what they were, And of course the K, J, Q, A for ace were the face cards, And then we sometimes assigned something to be the joker. It was hours of entertainment.
- We used to play the alphabet game: try to spot something that begins with the letter A Then B then C; everyone takes turns with a letter until someone has to give up. It was lots of fun.
- We also used license plates to learn the NATO phonetic alphabet used for radio communication in aviation.
- We have a truck and camper and compete for camper sightings. Trailers and motorhomes don't count. They have to be the campers on the trucks. My husband spotted a trailer moving campers and there were ten but they weren't on trucks so it didn't count.
- We sometimes played variations of the license plate game but more often we played "I Spy" for any objects visible from the car.
- We always played "I Packed My Suitcase" with our kids on trips. You have to add items alphabetically AND remember all the ones that came before. (I packed my suitcase and in it I put an alligator, a banana, a cuspidor, and a ....). It's actually fun for "kids" of any age because you can get creative with what goes in your suitcase.
- Ever play Cow Poker? Living in rural Virginia, we counted cows on our side of the car and you bury the other side of the car's cows if you see a cemetery on their side.
- I remember playing a game with my cousin which involved spotting cars with only one headlight (during the rainy season in Florida, headlights were a good idea); when one was spotted a silly word(I cannot recall what it was) was shouted and the winner was the one who had spotted the most one-eyed autos at the end of the trip. [Ed. Note: the word was Pa-diddle; if you were with your boyfriend/girlfriend, kissing was also involved...]
Travel Movies and Games
Before You Hop into Your Car...
Don't Forget to Sign My Guestbook
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lemonsqueezy
May 24, 2011 @ 7:22 am | delete
- Fabulous ideas here. I wish I could read in the car but it always makes me queasy.
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cinstress
Mar 28, 2011 @ 10:04 pm | delete
- great things to do onj roadtrips
thanks
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ShamanicShift
Feb 5, 2011 @ 9:16 am | delete
- What a fun lens -- blessed by a SquidAngel!
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Nenkai
Jan 27, 2011 @ 8:55 pm | delete
- I have that pack of 52 games to do in the car and we methodically work our way through them. This lens is a wonderful source!
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Womens-Ed-Hardy
Jan 19, 2011 @ 9:25 pm | delete
- My mother and I played the license plate game when I was a girl, and we still play it to this day. What a fun lens! =)
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charlino Jan 19, 2011 @ 3:36 pm | delete
- Oh, this brought back childhood memories. This is a beautiful LOTD.
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seledit
Jan 15, 2011 @ 1:09 pm | delete
- Nice lens! Congrats.
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fadibody
Jan 13, 2011 @ 9:08 pm | delete
- Great lens! Thanks for sharing.
http://www.bodybyfadi.com/buckhead-personal-trainer.html
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freecontent
Jan 13, 2011 @ 2:40 pm | delete
- Fun lens to read. Love the games you list. Next road trip we'll try License Plate Poker game. Thanks.
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glenanail
Jan 13, 2011 @ 11:34 am | delete
- Great stuff mate. I added a few items to your list
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blakesdad Jan 12, 2011 @ 8:33 pm | delete
- Funny as, brings back memories, congrats!
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Saffire7
Jan 12, 2011 @ 6:34 am | delete
- great lens, congrats on making LOTD ;)
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RenaissanceWoman2010
Jan 10, 2011 @ 10:38 am | delete
- Fun lens. Congrats on LOTD!
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AdriennePetersen
Jan 10, 2011 @ 9:42 am | delete
- My fav car game is the alphabet game, the winner was the one who got through the alphabet first AND spotted a white horse! I don't know what the white horse has to do with the alphabet, but that's the way we played it and it was fun. Thanks for the trip down memory lane and congrats on LOTD!
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skiesgreen
Jan 9, 2011 @ 3:31 pm | delete
- Congratulations on LOTD. Already rated this highly and now it is featured on Squidoo LOTD Lenses. Hugs
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by resabi
Experimenter, dabbler, follower of paths frivolous and not. I'm an editor by vocation and avocation; I also design books. Among my interests are readi... more »
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Sign Spotting
Lonely Planet Signspotting: Absurd & Amusing Signs from Around the World
Amazon Price: $4.19 (as of 06/02/2012)
When you're (temporarily) finished playing the license plate game, you can look for funny road signs. Or just revel in the hilarity of some of the signs others have encountered. You'll find plenty to make you laugh in this compendium. (Also check out volumes 2 and 3...)
It's Always Something
