Our year ended with another empty-nester first: a road trip without our kids. We traveled to the Pennsylvania-Maryland border to visit family. This time we brought Bailey Dog along — a new experience for her as well.

The most notable difference in swapping out our children for a canine was that it was a whole lot quieter. There was no rifling through bags looking for snacks, no calls for a referee to break up backseat skirmishes and no questions about when we would arrive. Bailey just laid down, looked out the window, or slept. When she was restless, I’d hand her a biscuit which she would delicately accept.

The second change is that Bill was willing to stop … often. Though he would announce that Bailey needed to take a break presumably to empty her bladder, the dog’s snores indicated otherwise. I am willing to say we stopped for Bill to take a break, not the dog. There was no “just hold on for a little bit longer kids” — we just stopped fairly often.

Finally, the radio streamed a seemingly endless broadcast of various sports. College basketball, college football and the NFL, each game merged into another. I swear we were listening to cornhole championships at one point. That never would have been tolerated on a family road trip. While Bill oversaw the driving, I handled family entertainment.

Although their friends had the once-popular car DVD players, I refused. Yes, I was THAT mom. You know, the one who insisted we listen to audiobooks as a family. The one who demanded that the kids look out the window and actually see something. The one who would initiate games to keep the young ones entertained.

There are two truths about all three of my children. They are all capitalists and competitive. So, while we played old classics like “I Packed My Trunks for Boston,” Twenty Questions, and License Plate Bingo, those games weren’t universal favorites. In my quest for my children to see the countryside and not just ignore it, I created the Pay for View game.

Once fidgeting increased, I would introduce a list of objects or animals and the corresponding amount the kids would earn for each sighting. Animals like cows and horses might bring a dime each, while sheep and goats might pay a quarter. When we drove further south, reciting a Pedro/South of the Border billboard would fetch 50 cents every time.

On one road trip to visit this same Maryland family member, I remembered Pennsylvania Dutch Hex signs. They had been an early fascination of mine. When I was about five, our family went camping in Lancaster County. While I don’t remember much about that trip, I recollect the upstairs of a barn-turned-tourist-shop where Pennsylvania Dutch Hex signs were arranged in racks similar to those for vinyl records. I wasn’t old enough to read the explanations, but my older brother would describe them. Each part of the symbol seemed to have a meaning: love, luck or peace. I was enthralled; I thought I had stumbled on a secret code for the universe.

Based on this memory, I offered the ultimate scavenger hunt prize: one dollar each time a hex sign was spotted. After I explained what they were looking for, the search began. For the first hour, my kids diligently hunted. And while they accumulated points for livestock, no hex signs were spotted. In fact, no hex signs were spotted in either direction on the trip.

That is, until we returned. From Saranac Lake to Vermontville, no less than five signs were spotted. Five Pennsylvania Dutch signs adorned local sheds, garages and barns. The kids joyfully pointed them out and collected their cash. Ironically, their pay-off happened when we arrived home.

The funny thing is, when I unpacked the car after this year’s trip, I found every biscuit I had handed to Bailey Dog along the way. She had buried them in her blanket while we were on the road but had never eaten them. These bones were happily gobbled down after we walked into the house. Just like our offspring, the dog’s prize was collected at home.

As for Bill and I? It was good to be back. Coming home was a reward for us as well. Bill missed his routine, and I missed the sound of his sigh every time I look at the thermostat.