The Great Western Road Trip 🗺️
🥚 Surprise
The Lightning's Sports Desk
Dave Mishkin and Dave Randorf — the Tampa Bay Lightning's legendary broadcast team — are covering Mom & Dad's road trip. Every moment. Live. Play them in order.
Start here: Play track 6 (Randorf — Welcome Broadcast) when you get in the car.
Then scatter the rest throughout the drive.
Lightning Broadcast — Road Edition
0:000:00
1Mishkin — The Snore
2Mishkin — The Gas Station
3Mishkin — The Diner
4Mishkin — The Hike
5Mishkin — Crossing Arizona
6★ Randorf — Welcome Broadcast
7Randorf — The Navigation
8Randorf — The Lunch Stop
9Randorf — The Scenic Overlook
10Randorf — End of Day
11Mishkin — The Pit Stop
12Mishkin — The Map
13★ Mishkin — The Meal
30+ literary essays on Florida — St. Augustine, Tampa, the
Everglades, Key West, Cape Canaveral. Read aloud from the state they're leaving.
These cover the history and soul of the peninsula. Start at essay #1.
The Florida Book
0:000:00
The Vote — A sci-fi thriller (pen name Elliot Sloan). A world where
every person gets one Vote to retroactively change a moment in the past. Vera Chen is a
Vote counselor. First scene: a grieving mother deciding whether to bring her daughter back.
It hooks fast.
The Vote — Preview (Ch. 1–7)
0:000:00
1Ch. 1 — The Counselor
2Ch. 2 — The Photograph
3Ch. 3 — The Dinner
4Ch. 4 — The Archive
5Ch. 5 — The Pattern
6Ch. 6 — The Others
7Ch. 7 — The Scientist
Unbroken — Laura Hillenbrand. Louis Zamperini: Olympic runner, WWII
bomber crew, Japanese POW camp. One of the great American survival stories.
Full audiobook, 52 parts. Dad will not want to stop driving.
Unbroken — Laura Hillenbrand
0:000:00
Curia Cards — Each card is a 4–7 minute deep
dive on a surprising topic. The state cards are perfect to queue as you cross each state line.
Wildlife section is extraordinary — play the river card for mom.
Curia Picks — 50 Cards
0:000:00
In Our Time: History — BBC
Three experts, one topic, 45 min. Start with "The Book of Job." She'll talk about it for months.
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Witness History — BBC
9-min eyewitness accounts of one historical moment. Self-contained. Perfect for driving.
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The Moth Radio Hour
True personal stories told live, no notes. Mix of devastating and hilarious.
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My Unsung Hero — Hidden Brain
10-min: ordinary people, a stranger who changed their life. Mom will cry. In the best way.
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Revive Our Hearts — Nancy DeMoss
Biblical, focused on women, gentle devotional teaching.
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Snap Judgment
Cinematic personal stories with music. Glynn Washington has one of the best voices in radio.
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Dan Carlin's Hardcore History ⭐
Start with Blueprint for Armageddon (WWI, 6 eps, ~23 hrs). If he gets hooked, this is the whole trip.
Highly recommended
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The Rest Is History
Two British historians who are also funny. Very bingeable. Start with any WWII episode.
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American History Tellers — Wondery
Narrative arcs on pivotal American moments. Try Watergate or Cuban Missile Crisis.
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No Such Thing as a Fish
QI researchers share the 4 weirdest facts they found. 30 min, very light. Good filler.
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Crime Junkie
Clean, conversational true crime. 30–40 min. Good road trip tempo.
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Serial — Season 1 ⭐
The gold standard. 12 episodes. Start at ep 1 and don't stop. Both of you.
Essential
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Grace to You — MacArthur
Your home base. Full archive, pick whatever series.
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Truth for Life — Alistair Begg
Scottish, warm, reformed. The best MacArthur alternative.
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Renewing Your Mind — R.C. Sproul
Holiness of God series is one of the great Christian teaching series.
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Revisionist History — Gladwell
Best eps: The Big Man Can't Shoot, Hallelujah, Mr. Hollowell's Turkey.
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Hidden Brain — NPR
Psychology and human behavior. Accessible, smart, endlessly interesting.
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Start here: An original song based on Habakkuk's lament.
Play it first.
Yet — Original Song
0:000:00
1Yet (Habakkuk Song)
🌸 For Mom — On Streaming
Sandra McCracken — Psalms (2015)
Every track is a psalm set to simple folk. Best quiet Christian album of the last decade.
Andrew Peterson — Resurrection Letters Vol. 1
Holy week concept album. Extraordinary writing.
The Gray Havens — Ghost of a King
Narrative folk, C.S. Lewis imagery, longer story-songs. Literary Christian at its best.
Page CXVI — Any album
Classic hymns with minimal, beautiful new arrangements. Come Thou Fount etc.
Alison Krauss — Paper Airplane ⭐
Not explicitly Christian but luminously beautiful. Both parents.
Fernando Ortega — Storm
Acoustic hymn settings. Very gentle. Perfect for long empty landscapes.
🎯 For Dad — On Streaming
Colter Wall — Songs of the Plains ⭐
Deep baritone, traditional cowboy country. The real thing. Makes you glad you have a long drive.
Tyler Childers — Purgatory
Appalachian storytelling. Some colorful language but genuine artistry.
Turnpike Troubadours — A Long Way From Your Heart
Oklahoma red dirt country. Big sound. Very road-appropriate.
Chris Stapleton — Traveller ⭐
The best modern country album. Highway-appropriate in every way.
George Strait — Pure Country
No argument. Dad.
Get Libby (free with any library card) — most of these are available free.
Also: Hoopla (also free with library card) as a backup.
Ready to Play Now
These stream straight from the site — no app, no library card. Tap a part and go.
The Hiding Place — Corrie ten Boom
0:000:00
The Holiness of God — R.C. Sproul
0:000:00
The Pursuit of Holiness — Jerry Bridges
0:000:00
The Practice of the Presence of God — Brother Lawrence
0:000:00
📖 Audio Bibles & Apps (free)
YouVersion Bible App
Free. Dramatized audio Bible in many translations. Great for long stretches of road.
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Dwell — Audio Bible
Beautifully produced Scripture listening with music beds and reading plans.
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Bible Gateway Audio
Stream whole books of the Bible free in the browser. No account needed.
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More on Libby
Gilead — Marilynne Robinson ⭐
A dying pastor's letter to his young son. Pulitzer Prize. The best literary novel about Christian faith in 50 years. Libby.
Must read — Libby
At Home in Mitford — Jan Karon
Gentle small-town Episcopal priest in North Carolina mountains. 14-book series. She may be about to have a new obsession. Libby.
Jayber Crow — Wendell Berry
A barber in Port William, Kentucky. Berry sees the world the way she does — through deep attention to small, faithful things. Libby.
A Land Remembered — Patrick D. Smith ⭐
The most beloved Florida novel. Three generations of a Florida family, 1858–1968. Perfect companion to the Florida audiobook essays. Libby.
The Giver of Stars — Jojo Moyes
Women horseback librarians in Depression-era Kentucky. Beautiful, female-driven historical fiction. Libby.
Bruchko — Bruce Olson ⭐
19-year-old goes alone to the Motilone tribe in Colombia. No org, no support. One of the wildest missionary stories ever written. Libby.
Peace Child — Don Richardson
Sawi tribe, New Guinea — a culture where betrayal is a virtue. The "peace child" key that unlocks the gospel. She'll talk about this for years. Libby.
Daws — Betty Lee Skinner
Dawson Trotman, founder of the Navigators. One of the great 20th-century Christian lives. Libby.
Gates of Fire — Steven Pressfield ⭐
The 300 Spartans at Thermopylae, told as a novel. One of the greatest war novels ever written. Libby or Archive.org.
Black Hawk Down — Mark Bowden
1993 Mogadishu battle, minute by minute. Gold standard of modern military journalism. Libby.
The Longest Day — Cornelius Ryan
D-Day. Ryan interviewed hundreds of survivors. The original modern war narrative. Libby.
Band of Brothers — Stephen Ambrose
Easy Company, 506th PIR. The source for the HBO series. Archive.org or Libby.
Transfer of Power — Vince Flynn
First Mitch Rapp novel. More action-forward than Clancy, same lane. Libby.
📺 Ken Burns: The National Parks — Perfect for going out west. 6 episodes.
Tablet + motel nights. Find it on PBS or YouTube.