Our favorite thing about long car trips is to go to the public library and check out books on tape. Helps fill in the time especially when traveling in a area that there isn't much to choose from on the radio. When our sons were young, we would get the old time radio show tapes at Cracker Barrel (they had/have a tape exchange program). Learned a lot about Fibber McGee and Molly, the Lone Ranger, and many more.  Our favorite was Mystery/Suspence Theater.  We would save this tape for the night time drive when we were trying to 'settle' the boys down.  They found it fun as the 'car version' of ghost stories.  Of course thanks to modern techology, they now watch movies, play video games, etc.  Have to laugh that now at Cracker Barrel, they have DVD's of tv shows that I grew up with and my youngest thinks these shows are a hoot! Gillian's Island, Beverly Hillbillies, Twilite Zone, but it's not the same as listening to the plots