The Wanderlust Librarian | Road Tripping

I love to drive. There's nothing sweeter than the freedom to take my car and go wherever I please. In fact, as you read this, my car is taking a well deserved rest after taking me and my friends to Southern California. 

My car at its peak of cleanliness! 

Driving short distances (under 2-3 hours) is a snap. Driving longer distances either alone or with others, requires a little more finesse and planning. When planning for your road trip, consider these ideas: 

IMPORTANT TIP: 
Get your car in shape! If you need to get an oil change because it's time, do it. If you need to replace that timing belt, do it. At the very least, top off your fluids at your local oil change place. There is nothing worse than the car breaking down when you're on your big adventure. 

The tunes are the thing: I love music. If you love music, make sure you have some tunes to carry you along on your journey! Make CD mixes or just have the proper cords to hook up your phone or music player to your car stereo. 

Get that reading in! The library has audiobooks to listen to when you don't want to listen to music. There is a great selection both on CDs and through our OverDrive e-audiobook system. 

Where are you going? I purchased a GPS for myself over 3 years ago thinking "as long as I have a map, I won't need this!". Boy, was I wrong! It's a handy co-pilot to have it when I'm in a new city or traveling to a new destination around a city I'm in. Always have addresses at the ready just in case you need to figure out where you're going and need to ask someone. 

Nibbles and eats: It's a proven fact that you'll get hungry on the road. I love to subscribe to the "camping snacks" option for road eating. Simply said, make or bring snacks that you could bring camping and not worry about. I love trail mix-ish type snacks, granola bars and water. It'll help to keep your energy level up and your mind alert while driving! 

Coffee is welcome in my car ANYtime! 

I'm not going to lie... I love coffee while I'm on the road.



Give yourself some time: Give yourself a cushioned span of time to travel so you don't rush and hurry. It causes stress and you won't enjoy your travel time as much. If online map says it'll take 5 hours, just tell yourself it'll really take 6 hours.  

Most of all... have a good time! Make sure you're well rested and prepared to travel. It really does come down to preparation to make your trip a smooth one! 

Find inspiration on the road this fall and check out one of these books: 

Back Roads California

National Geographic guide to scenic highways and byways

California's best trips : 35 amazing road trips

Automobile adventures are out there!

Miss Moneypennypincher | Musical Stylings

There are many ways to listen to music these days, with some great free options.  I myself, often listen to Pandora, the radio, and my personal music library.  Sometimes though, when I am shuffling through multiple songs - often times from different genres - it doesn't always seem like I am getting the "full story" from musicians I like, or think I might enjoy more.  And it's true.  Not all, but certainly a good number of albums really should be enjoyed from start to finish.  We (some library staff and I) came up with a list of some of our favorite albums and artists just off the top of our heads: Exile on Main Street, The Lumineers, Elephant, Abbey Road, Dark Side of the Moon, Mumford and Sons, Bruce Springsteen, American Beauty.  Listening to a few songs from the album are okay, but listening to the whole thing, all at once, is a different experience entirely.  However, albums are expensive.  The cheapest ones I find are usually still $9.99.  I don't want to shell out $10 for an entire album only to discover I didn't like most of the songs, or worse yet didn't like the whole thing.  

 Once again, the library comes to my rescue.  I can check out music here, figure out if I like it, and decide whether I want to commit to making that purchase.  One time (okay maybe more than once), I listened to every album by The Black Keys in order, some albums requested from SSJCPL and the others through Link Plus - a great way to find some more obscure stuff.  Listening to albums in order reminds me of reading books by a specific author in the order they were written.  It gives you much more insight into the person (or musicians) who wrote them.

"Why don't you like my overplayed song, Tara?!"

Not only that, I don't know how many times I have purchased a single song or CD thinking, " I could NEVER get sick of this!", only to listen to it over and over, and over again for weeks, until I never want to hear it again.  There are some songs I want to listen to again about as much as I want to stick nails in my ears.  I am not going to embarrass myself by calculating how many songs in my library are like that, and how much I have spent on them total (but I am pretty sure it is at least $500, easy).  However, I will never get sick of The Black Keys, ever.  I bought every single one of their albums.  They passed the repeated listening test, hands down.


Of course, I am not suggesting you take our CDs home and burn them (either with a fire or with a computer), because that is illegal, BUT, use the library to make sure that you REALLY want to download that song, or album, before you commit to spending that $9.99 on it. 

I want more suggestions though.  What is your favorite album to listen to from start to finish?