RV-ing with Kids: Pack your Patience!

So what's the secret to RV-ing with three kids.  Patience, Distractions, and lots of Humor.  The kids have been great, but it's funny to travel with children. 

For instance, we made a rule that everyone had to take off their shoes when they enter the RV, to help keep it clean.  Some of you know that Brian doesn't have a lot of patience when he wants to get going (especially if it's to a bathroom).  So my requiring that the kids take off their shoes, its means that many times a day we find ourselves imploring the kids to put their shoes on, with a guarantee that someone has lost a sock, another will have kicked a siblings shoe outside, and a third will want change their shoes selection! And then sometimes, someone just decides that this is the best time to brush their teeth! 

Distractions help us pass the time.  I haven't played this many card and board games in 30 years.  We are having a blast!  Audible books are also a big hit.  Claire could do arts and craft projects all day, so that's a great fit for this trip!

Then I had a funny moment driving today.  Brian was napping.  Reid was my co-pilot.  We were leaving Mammoth Caves where the cell reception was totally non-existent.  Reid wanted to listen to Ed Sheeran music.  Not thinking that my Amazon Music account wouldn't work without cellular connection, I told him that he could put it on.  Grabbing my phone, Reid quickly encountered problems.  The Amazon app redirected him to "offline" mode.  Now the music was not able to play.  I found myself,driving the RV across the state of Kentucky, trying to talk him through going to "settings", by hitting the "home" button, and scrolling to find the "Amazon Music settings."  Reid was trying to read the various prompts from the phone, but garbling the long words.  It was ridiculous!  It took us a solid 15 minutes to finally get the music to play.  I had the thought," go wake up your dad!" about 5 times.  But then I realize that we had 400 miles to figure this out.  No real rush.  No real reason to be frustrated.  I laughed to myself, and we kept going.  When the music played, we sang along together at full volume!