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Things to do in the Car and Ferry Line

Music and Radio

1. Take turns humming a song and letting the others guess what song it is. Whoever guesses correctly gets to hum the next one.
2. Put the radio on a talk station. Turn down the volume. Ask the radio a question and then turn up the volume. The radio will answer your question! But usually it will be very funny. [I played this with my friend once and after awhile I said to her "I can't think of anymore questions." She was in the middle of changing to a better talk station and when she stopped the radio said: "You should go back to boot camp!"]!
3. Pick a song you like and keep the tune the same, but make up different words as you sing it.
4. As soon as a song comes on the radio, the first person to guess the name of the song, the singer or another detail about the song, gets a point. Beforehand, decide how many points it takes to win. If this gets too easy, try to think of harder things people have to guess, like the last word of the song or what color of hair the singer has.(An alternative way to play this game is helpful for families who have trouble agreeing on a radio station to listen to. Someone begins by turning to their radio station, and whoever guesses the name of the song or artist first gets to change it to their radio station once the song's over.)
5. Sing the words of one song to the tune of another.
6. Sing a line of a song. The next person has to sing a of a different song. The catch is that they must use a word that the other person sung in their line.
7. Have everybody take turns singing a piece of their favorite song.
8. Pick someone in the car to begin the game. That person thinks of a song and starts singing it, without telling anyone else what the name of it is. The first person to guess
   what the song is, gets a point and gets to sing the next song. Decide beforehand how many points wins.
   Variation:
   Everyone starts with an equal number of points [you choose how many]. You play
   the same but instead of getting a point when you think of the name of the song,
   you subtract the number of words the person sung, from your score. When someone reaches 0 the game ends and the person with the most points left
   wins.

Writing and Stories

1. Make a ship's log of your adventures. Ask each person to describe the day's events creatively as one person writes them down in a notebook. You could make this into an adventure or spy story, then every time you get into the car you can add to it.
2. Somebody starts telling a story and after a couple of minutes, points to another person who goes on with the story for awhile and then points to the next person. You can make the stories go on forever!
3. Somebody begins a story by saying just one word, everybody then takes turns adding the next word as quickly as possible. The game ends when the story is over, or somebody takes to long trying to think of the next word.
4. Make up your own language! You could call brothers willabickers and cookies
   humdoobs!
5. Try saying everything backwards. First practice just saying words, for example, book becomes "koob". After awhile, try doing whole sentences backwards! "Backwards song a singing try, sentences at good really get you if!"
6. Here's a good game to play when things start getting too noisy on the car: Instead of talking, pass notes to each other.
7. Make up a story about the first five things that come into your head. Tell it to the others in the car. Take turns doing this. Also, it's handy to have some paper around, to write down the stories that are really good.
8. Make up a code.
9. This game is called Ghost and this is how you play:
   One person thinks of a word they want to try and spell [except they don't really want to spell it, but more on that later], they write the first letter of that word on a piece of paper. The next person thinks of a word that starts with that letter[it can be the same or different word], they write the second letter after the first. This continues, each taking turns until a word is spelled. The person who finishes the word loses the round and gets a "G". Like in pig, except first you get G, then H, O, S, and last T. The first person to spell GHOST loses the game.
10. Hidden sentences:
    [This game must be done with at least 4 players, or it doesn't work]. To play, divide the people playing into two groups. One person from each team sits aside and plugs their ears. Each team makes up a sentence that is weird, like:
    "Forty crows were eating clams in the forest."
    They write these sentences on slips of paper and call the other people back into the group. Each team hands their paper to the person who sat out in the other team.
    They read the sentence silently and then begin a conversation with the other person who sat out. The object of the game is
    1: To figure out what their weird sentence is. You can try to guess what the other person's weird sentence is only 3 times during the conversation, and only right after they've said it.
    2: To say the weird sentence to the other person without them being able to
    guess that its the sentence you read.
    SCORING:
    1 point if the other team makes three wrong guesses.
    2 points if you correctly guess the sentence.
    2 points if you say your sentence and the person doesn't detect it.
11. This game is called THE SECRET WORD. To play this, you must have at least 3 players with good imaginations. One player will be the "detective", that person must plug their ears. The rest of the players talk about and agree on what should be the secret word. The detective then asks each of the players a different question which they must answer in three to four sentences and use the secret word in it. When all of the players have answered the questions, the detective must guess what the secret word is, in 5 guesses. When he guesses correctly, the score is written down and a new detective is chosen.
    SCORING:
    5 points if right on first guess
    4 if on second
    3 on third
    2 on fourth
    1 on fifth
12. This game can be played with 1 or 100. It's called WHY? BECAUSE! To play, four small slips of paper are given to each person. Everybody writes down 2 or more questions beginning with WHY, and then writes a BECAUSE answer to each question (all on different slips of paper). Example:
    QUESTION: Why are some clouds gray?
    ANSWER: Because they are filled with rain.
    When everyone is finished, all the WHY slips go into one container, and all the
    BECAUSE slips into another. Each person draws out one WHY slip and one
    BECAUSE slip. Then they take turns reading their question and answer. The result
    will be a funny, mixed matched question and answer maybe sounding something
    like this:
    “Why are some clouds gray?. . . Because it is their way of communicating.”
    This is a mix of:
    Why are clouds gray? . . . Because they are filled with rain.
    And. . .
    Why do birds sing? . . . Because it is their way of communicating.
13. The name of this game is Square Words. To play, have each person draw a box on their sheet of paper. Divide it into 25 small squares, but big enough to write one letter in each. One person [who is not playing the game] calls out letters that
    must be put in the squares. The players can put them in any square they
    wish. The object of the game is to be able to make as many words as possible
    when the squares are all filled in[words can be formed vertically, horizontally or diagonally].
    SCORING:
    2 letter words are 2 points
    3 letter words are 3 points etc. ... etc. ...
14. The final game in this section is CATEGORIES. A minimum of 4 people are needed to play. Begin by giving each person a sheet of paper and a pencil. On the paper make a box. Make five lines going down and five going across [this divides it into 36 squares]. In the top left hand square write: TOTAL POINTS. Decide as a group, different categories (sports, junk foods, things found in a kitchen etc.) to write in the five spaces to the right of it and five letters to write in the spaces below. The players now have 7 minutes to fill in all the boxes with words. The words must fit the category above and begin with
    the letter to the left. At the end of 7 minutes everyone stops and scores themselves.
    SCORING:
    0 points if there is no word in that box
    1 point if there is a word in the box, but someone else has that
    word too.
    2 points if you have a word no one else does.

Imagination games

[Have a pen and paper handy, you might want to write down your ideas and what goes on].

1. Pretend your car is an airplane or spaceship, pretend the driver is the pilot
   and pick jobs for everyone else. Hold conversations as your characters.
2. In this game everybody pretends that they are an inventor. One person thinks of a common object like a bed spring and then everybody thinks up funny uses
   for it. For example, a bed spring could be a catapult for a mouse, a slide for
   an ant, or an antler off a deer from Neptune. When no one can think of any
   more uses, pick a new object.
3. Imagine that you are something you see that you pass on the road. Look at things from it's point of view.
4. Pretend that you are traveling in a vehicle from a long time ago. Think of
   where you are going and why.
5. Pretend that you are in a vehicle from the future. Draw what you think it looks like.
6. Look at the clouds, trees and hills outside the car. See if you can see any
   interesting shapes or forms they take.
7. Make up a sequel to a book or movie.
8. Imagine you are explorers. As you go, draw the roads you travel on. On the
   back of the paper write down why you are are exploring the area and different
   things that happen to you on the way.

Art and Drawing

1. Design and draw a spaceship, time machine, cool sports car or some other vehicle.
2. Draw your dream house or just your dream room.
3. Make a map or drawing of a different land.
4. Draw a different kind of people, to live in the made up land.
5. Get 3 or more people and play FOLLOW MY PEN. To play, give paper and pens [or pencils] to everyone. Pick one person to be the leader. That person will think of something to draw [something fairly simple] but not tell anyone what it is. Then they will begin to draw it slowly. The others, looking only at the leader’s paper, not their own, will try to draw the same thing. If the leader’s pen goes up, so does theirs. When the drawing is completed, the others can look down at their paper, the results of their drawing are usually interesting.
6. Play pictionary!
7. Pick two objects outside the car and try to draw them, combining them both
   into one. Name the new object.
8. With lunch sized paper bags, you can make puppets, just draw faces on them
   and then do a puppet show!
9. Draw an optical illusion.
10. Just draw anything!

Other Ideas

1. Look for certain types of cars on the road . . . each is worth a certain number of points. (We play this with VW bugs (new and old = 1 pt), PT Cruisers (2 pts), Limos (6 pts), and Hummers (20 pts).) See who can get the most points before reaching your destination!
2. Play "I'm Going to The Anacortes Ferry Terminal" (aka "I'm Going to Grandma's House") One person starts by saying "I'm going to the Anacortes Ferry Terminal and I'm taking an __________." The blank should be filled in with a noun (person,place or thing) starting with the letter "A" For example:
   "I'm going to the Anacortes Ferry Terminal and I'm taking an Air mattress." Then the next person (we usually go clockwise) needs to say the same thing as the person before them, but add on a noun starting with the next letter of the alphabet. For example:
   "I'm going to the Anacortes Ferry Terminal and I'm taking an Air mattress
   and a Bumper sticker."
   Each player continues to add on a "thing to bring" until the end of the alphabet is reached.