In the "land of the mouse", it sometimes feels impossible to find inexpensive things to do. While I was bored one day, I wrote down as many free (or almost free) things to do that I could think of. Surprisingly, I came up with a pretty long list.
Below is a quick list of 50 or so things from that list....
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Our official last day of vacation out West. We woke up to the sounds of life outside our condo, then ate breakfast and cleaned up.
We checked out at about 9:30 and headed East on Route 6 toward Arapahoe Basin ski area and Loveland Pass.
We stopped at the pass and hiked up to the peak. Brandon and I were first to the top. Trevor and Jennifer finally made it to the top after taking a few breaks. It gets extremely hard to breath at 12,000 feet plus.
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Surprisingly, today was our first day to somewhat relax on the entire vacation. We slept our first of two nights at Expedition Station in the Keystone Resort.
I spent a lot of time searching for a hotel or condo in this area with AC, but we discovered that, it was all a waste of time.
Last night we left all of the windows open, and still needed a blanket. In fact when we woke up, it was 50 degrees outside.
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We started the day at 7AM with the great free breakfast at the hotel. I've officially got the kids addicted to Holiday Inn Express' cinnamon rolls.
After checking out of the hotel, we started our four hour drive from Moab to Breckenridge.
We arrived in Breckenridge at about 3ish, and we spent the afternoon exploring and shopping downtown.
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This morning we woke up to another great pot of cowboy coffee, fresh blueberry pancakes, and bacon. Last night's sleep was not as good as the night before, at least for me.
Jennifer, the kids, and I tried to get our camp packed up while we still had the shadow of the canyon on it. Other's didn't, and had to pack up in full sun.
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After a surprizing good night of sleep, we woke up to great cowboy coffee and hot chocolate. The guide's made a egg, sausage, pepper, onion, and tomato scramble in the dutch oven.
After packing up camp we rafted down calm water, to about a 1/2 mile past the confluence of the Green and Colorado Rivers. The confluence is the point which splits Canyonlands National Park into its three distinct districts: Islands in the Sky, Maze, and Needles.
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Our day began by getting up at 5:30AM, so that we could get checked out, eat breakfast, and get to the rafting company by 7:30. Everything we had packed from Florida, in addition to our four river bags were packed into the car. The only person who could see was Jennifer, because she was driving.
The drive to the river put in point at Potash, only took about 30 minutes. We stopped on the way to see Indian drawings on a rock face cliff. We pushed off by 9:45
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Today we had a great time hiking Arches and Canyonlands National Parks. It was about 100 degrees, but it was very comfortable.
After dinner we did a 2 1/2 hour sunset hummer tour on the Hells Revenge trail. This was definitely worth the money. We had a great guide (Cody) from Moab Tour Company.
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Our Summer adventure started with an early morning Frontier flight from Orlando to Denver. This was my first time on Frontier, and I was very impressed with the seats and service. There were absolutely no problems.
Upon arrival in Denver we picked up our rental car, (very nice new Malibu). We then headed out for a quick bite for lunch then our long drive to Moab.
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About six months ago I stumbled on some great personal finance tips on the Wall Street Journal, by Jonathan Clement. One tip we implemented immediately, and the kids love it.
One of my early tricks was the soda game, which I learned about from a reader. When my children were young and we went to restaurants, I would give them a choice: They could have a soda or they could have $1.
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