Everybody Needs a Repair Pal

This is a VERY VERY cool website! It’s “Repair Pal.” It’s a type of yellow pages for vehicle repairs for your area. My husband uses our vehicle for work, so the van is in the shop quite a bit. Plus, I use the vehicle for our travels… and needless to say, the van gets a lot of use. When it comes time for fixing, what happens is I am always thumbing through the yellow pages, looking for this or that repair shop, trying to find hours, make appointments, etc etc. It’s pretty laborious and takes me a long time. Having a veritable “yellow” pages online is terrific! You can search by repair shop, city and state, zip code, everything! And if you are traveling in a city and need a repair shop, you can go to Repair Pal and find a shop easily, anywhere.

So let’s say you own a Honda Accord (blessed are you!). And let’s say you live in San Francisco, CA. You can type in your city and state or zip, and choose your car’s make. Voila! You get a list of San Francisco auto repair shops, maps of all the shops, reviews where given, and more information. I checked out a few zip codes and cities– Repair Pal even had repair shop listings for Juneau, Alaska, Honolulu, Hawaii, and Bouckville, New York! Very impressive.

Moreover, Repair Pal has an Auto Repair Encyclopedia. So now you can do a little research about your vehicle before you take it to the shop, or, if you are curious and like to learn how the timing belt works and etc, peruse at your own pleasure. Repair Pal also has a “RepairPrice Estimator” where you can get a general idea of the cost of a repair for your car’s make/model.

It’s a good site– I give it a thumbs up and I will be using this site for our future repair shop research.

Remember, I’m a pro-blogger and I am sometimes compensated with stuff or money to review products! This was one of them. You can read more about my blog policy on my “Sitewide Policy” page.

Enjoy the Ride

At the dinner table this evening, I was asking the children (I have four, ranging in ages from 11 to 18) what they liked best about traveling. I was thinking of writing a blog article about how to travel with kids. But as we talked about our experiences over our baked ziti and bread and butter, it became clear that the children enjoyed our adventures during the car trip more than the distractions to make the trip bearable. In a nutshell, I guess you could say we enjoy the ride.

They had some good ideas. Of course, being older (and more articulate), they are beyond the bingo games and sing-a-longs that make younger children happy. My youngest would still love a van with a built-in DVD player, but the others offered some sage advice. I’ll share them with you, because I thought they were very open and frank with their thoughts.

1. Take the scenic route.

This ranked number one among them all. They hate taking the highways and thruways, even if it means we will arrive at our destination sooner. Why have misery all the way to your destination and then all the way back home from it, just to save time? Enjoy the ride!

As New York travelers, we have the advantage of day-long car trips and beautiful scenery. We’ve had our share of I-90 road trips, and the trip is never as much fun as the trip we had when we took local routes like Route 5 or Route 20 or Route 8 or even the out-of-the-way local roads. Improvise a little. Make stops along the way, go to a grocery store and talk with the locals, or do your homework and find some local oddity in town to see before reaching your “big” destination.

2. Interact with the passengers.

My husband and I like talk radio (well, my husband loves it). We could have it running the whole trip. But the kids hate it. This makes sense, since half the time they don’t understand what the radio host is talking about. They’re kids. Who the heck is Bill O’Reilly to them?

My children want us to interact with them. They love conversation and stories. So hubby and I try to keep the car trip lively by informing the kids of all our youthful foibles, to their great delight! I also try to research the site we are visiting, and give a short history lesson before we get there. This adds a great deal of depth and appreciation to the site we visit. It also impresses the tour guides with our great knowledge.

I believe children- for all their groanings and complaints– truly desire their parents’ input. Mine certainly do, and aren’t afraid to let us know. Traveling in the car for long distances, where else can parents find such a captive audience? We mostly discuss the Bible, history, family life, philosophy, and current events. Find out what interests your child, but also teach the child some new things. Travel is really the perfect time to bond closer together and learn more about each other. It especially helps if you have a talkative group, as do we.

3. Bring along audio books for quiet times.

When you are tired of talking (or listening), an audio book works wonders. We have the Bible on tape, and several CDs of sermons from ministers, which are wonderful for quiet thoughts on the road. I rarely play music, and I never play heavy rock music, because those are distractions that work against reflection and conversation, I believe. Travel should be more than just a means to an end. Traveling to the destination is 90% of the journey, and I want it to be filled with convivial depth, not anarchistic distractions.

So there are my kids’ ideas. Nothing against Uno or sing-a-longs or hand-held computer games, as everything has its place I suppose. But keep in mind that the journey is half the fun, and children are as happy with simple things as complicated things. I will take that a little further and say that they are happiest when they are involved with the parents, and when there is unity among the group. This makes the traveling so much more enjoyable.

Enjoy the ride. Enjoy it together!

Photo courtesy of Vintage Clip Art.