My Mommy Van’s CD player has been broken for ages. It probably met it’s death with the little angels shoving something in there at some point. Regardless, my usual car entertainment of getting books on CD from Cracker Barrel had been disrupted and with a 3,000 mile ride ahead, Mom needed to be entertained. With my new iPad 2 purchased for Yatmedia work, I figured I could rig something up. I proceeded to purchase a lime green audio cable from Radio Shack for about $7 (they do not have the colored ones on-line). Figured this color would not get lost in all the kid wires on the trip and I was correct. Then from my home WiFi I proceeded to download, Chelsea Handler’s book in the iTunes store. Easy enough. Now, I found messing with the iPad to pause the book while someone called on my bluetooth earpiece as hazardous as texting while driving. This became the kids in the backseat’s job (with hemming and hawing). I knew the book would end before I reached my final destination, so proceeded to attempt to download more books on the free WiFi at La Quinta. Not a great idea! I sucked the Broadband forever and could not get a freaking book downloaded. I had partially downloaded books and since I was unable to get to my computer – had to deal with iTunes customer service who was kind enough to give me a one time rebate as I had to re-purchase the book to get the second half of it (normally it would have been in the downloads to finish but somehow this was not)!!! So here are a few tips from my experience:

1. Pre-purchase all the books you need from your home computer/WiFi.
2. Teach you passenger (if you have one) how to pause the book or have a good safe system to do it yourself.
3. Make sure all the books you have are safe for little ears. Hard task! Thank goodness James Patterson is right up the NCIS alley for my teens.
4. Buy an audio cord to put in your car so you can listen through your stereo. Make sure it is long enough so your iPad has a safe place to rest.
5. Drive safely !

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