The post about Carcade, the in-car real-time video game, sparked a fairly interesting discussion about the pastimes we've undertaken as passengers. Growing up in the era before video games there was "I Spy" along with other vision games to get children through those long hours on the road. The era of the video game brought Radio Shack handhelds, the Game Boy, the PSP and now in-car installations of an XBOX 360, Wii and a PS3 — all assuring children are no longer subjected to the beautiful, pastoral scenes cascading across the window. In Texas, where it sometimes gets rural, the natives play a game called "Hey, Cow!" wherein passengers yell at cows and are awarded points every time one looks back. When your parents loaded up the Family Truckster and set you off on a journey through America, how did you survive the time?

We were lucky enough to have gotten a Sega Game Gear as a kid, allowing us to ignore the scenery and play Sonic The Hedgehog and other games, burning through what felt like hundreds of AAA batteries in one sitting. When that wasn't an option, dad trained us to "Spot Johnny" sitting along the side of the road. "Dad, Dr. Pepper Squad (Dept of Public Safety Highway Patrol) behind that billboard!" or "County Mountie coming the other way!" Yeah, we had an interesting childhood.

Send an email to Matt Hardigree, the author of this post, at matt@jalopnik.com.