🚂 Are we there yet?

What Peabody says

Peabody never says "soon", because soon means nothing to a five-year-old. The answer is always "not yet", the time left rounded the way a grown-up would say it, something to measure it by (songs, cartoons or movies), and a game from the car games shelf. Here is what the button said on three drives:

• 100 minutes left: "Not yet! About 1 hour 40 minutes to go. That's about as long as 4 cartoons, one after another. Let's play I Spy!"
• 45 minutes left: "Not quite yet! About 45 minutes to go. That's about as long as 2 cartoons, one after another. Let's play Twenty Questions!"
• 10 minutes left: "Nearly, but not yet! About 10 minutes to go. That's about as long as two or three songs. Let's play Count the Cows!"

There's no beeping and no alarm on the way, so the driver isn't startled. When the train reaches the station, Peabody says "We made it" once, and that's all. The button doesn't count how many times it was asked; ask a hundred times and it answers a hundred times.

For the grown-up

Traffic, a long lunch, a wrong turn?

Tap Change the time left under the button and set a new guess. The train picks up from there. A guess is fine: the countdown is for the back seat, not for the driver, and Peabody rounds it anyway.

Does it know where we are?

No. There's no GPS, no map and no location permission, and nobody types a town or an address. The phone keeps only when you pressed Go and about how long you said, so a reload or a locked screen picks up where the train was. End the drive and that's gone too.

Does it need a signal?

Only to open the page. After that the train runs on the phone's own clock, in a tunnel or out in the hills.

While you wait: the License Plate Game, travel bingo, or pick a car game in three taps. Going for Thanksgiving? The Thanksgiving drive checklist has the night before covered.