We always used to get big fights when we're driving to and from Colorado, We would either drive up over the north side through Grand Junction and into Denver and then down in Colorado Springs, that took about 12 hours. Alternately we could drive across the south, and stop by Mesa Verde in Cortez, which is amazing by the way, and and then north up to Pueblo and then to Colorado Springs, this way was about 18 hours plus the six or so for Mesa Verde. We would leave the house really early while we were all still in the drowsy of morning and my mom would try and pound out the miles as fast as she could before we woke up ready to raise hell. We would all wake up and be under the spell of excitement and anticipation for the trip for a few hours and then things would go badly wrong. Someone would get bored and would start a little niggle, little by little the niggle would escalate to a full blown annoyance. That would cause a chain reaction that would end up with two people fighting and then because of the close quarters somebody would get an elbow in the face or something and then it would be great, and terrible. All kinds of chaos would break loose with my mom you trying to drive with one hand and try to punch whoever she could reach with the other. The melee would then spill over into the front seat and people were jumping over the seat, back and forth kicking and punching, catch as catch can. Then mom would be swerving all over the place trying to slap and punch some sense into us. She was always claiming she was trying to break it up but, in truth, I think my dearly sainted mother was hitting the boredom safety valve as well, and if you ask her about it too this day she will giggle a little about it. When it had gone too far and everybody was fighting everybody, trying to punch everybody's everything, mom would stop the car throw us all out of the car drive forward about a mile or two. Until you walked far enough to catch up she would wait for us to whimper and huff-and-puff out all of our feelings of injustice and wait for them to change to the sweet nearly silent panting of exhausted kids. Then properly worn out and calmed down we would load back up and have a fairly smooth ride for a few more hours until the boredom tipped over into the niggle of inevitability. If you were wondering if a mother by herself should drive six kids all day across the country, my answer would be a tentative yes, wholly dependent on her skill at punch-slapping the back seat while still driving safely. So I guess the answer would be no.
