Category: Travel

               This has definitely been the summer of last minute travel plan changes, but I’m learning so much about going with the flow and embracing change!  A few weeks ago the kids and I were supposed to go to Ohio to visit family and ended up having to cancel last minute.  We were all disappointed as we had plans to visit friends on the way there and back, not to mention all the family we weren’t going to get to see.  So instead of canceling the entire trip, we decided to add on some fun stops and head north to see friends in St. Louis anyways.  Since we have been to see St Louis before, we decided to stop and see some things on the way there and the way home rather than spending all of our time in the city (and mark off states 35, 36, & 37 for the four of us together).

We drove through Oklahoma and Kansas with picnic stops for lunch and dinner along the way.  Our first overnight stop was in Nebraska.  We arrived just after dinner and checked into our hotel overlooking nonstop fields!  The view was fantastic, and other than one big rig, I don’t remember ever staying somewhere where you didn’t see cars and roads in every direction!  We woke up and grabbed breakfast on our way out of the hotel, heading for the Lewis and Clark Expedition Museum in Nebraska City, Nebraska.

This was a fantastic stop and while we only intended to spend an hour or so, we ended up spending the whole morning.  We watched a documentary explaining the Lewis & Clark Expedition and then explored the three-story museum.  There were canoes, a full size keelboat replica, and even a keelboat game that they could steer and try to keep from crashing (we failed miserably)!  After exploring the museum we hiked to the overlook so we could see the Missouri River and then made our way to see the Native American earth lodge on the other side of the property. 

We finished our visit with a picnic in the parking lot and then crossed the state line into Iowa with a visit to Waubonsie State Park.  We had the park pretty much to ourselves as we hiked the Ridge and Bridge trails from the Overlook where we could see for miles!  This park allows for hikers, horseback riders, and camping.  The kids decided we should come back in the winter when they allow snowmobiling!

Next time we want to explore the other half of Kansas and Nebraska.  There are several places in both we would like to visit and friends who we were close to that we missed out on seeing! More trips are definitely in our future!

People ask all the time how we can afford to travel so much or tell me nicely 😉 they wish that they could afford to travel like we can.  So I want to tell you how we afford to travel so many places without breaking the bank!

I am blessed to still have an income coming in from Ben’s pension each month.  That income pays for most of our regular living expenses, but is NOT enough to pay for the extras like travel and fun educational and sports classes that the kids enjoy so much!  So for all these bonus expenses, I work!  I teach online classes and am a guest educator/tutor in my kid’s school district.  We budget for travel and we look for deals for wherever we want to go months in advance, even if we aren’t ready to pull the trigger on purchasing them yet! (Right now I am tracking on 4 different trips stateside that I’m price checking and waiting for the right time to take them!)

We had planned to travel internationally (to Europe) twice this year and budgeted for the trips since we moved to Texas.  Since the pandemic hit and cancelled a lot of those travel plans, we have quite a bit of money in flight credits waiting for us, and it freed up some cash that we could use to take some local trips throughout the United States in the meantime. 

I’ve mentioned before that we look for cheap lodging (but if you like camping you can definitely find lodging that is even cheaper!), and try to book things on AirBnB and other similar sites that allow us to save money overall.

Here are a few ways to save money:

• FIND FRIENDS.  Sharing an AirBnb can eliminate half of your cost and you can split cooking as well so it still feels like a vacation. OR go visit family or friends who will let you spend a few days crashing with them for free while you sightsee in their area!
• BRING YOUR OWN FOOD.  Pack a cooler of food, snacks, drinks and lunches so that you don’t have to eat out.  If you are in an Airbnb, plan some easy meals and pack the ingredients.  It does not have to cost anymore than eating at home does!
• THINK FREE!  Look for state parks, national parks, and other free activities wherever you are traveling.  You don’t have to do expensive tours and excursions.  There are so many blogs and websites out there that will tell you all the free things to do in a location that will more than keep you busy!
• ALWAYS HAVE AN EYE OPEN FOR DEALS.  If you have the ability to book last minute, it can save you a ton.  Many places will lower rates at the last minute so that they don’t have empty rooms.  I always check Groupon and other sites where we are traveling to see if I can get a good deal on an activity that we really want to do.  If you have never taken a cruise before, I highly recommend trying to book one last minute if your schedule allows it (I took a week long $300 cruise to Alaska one summer because I booked a balcony room last minute!  Cruises are one place that will drop rates incredibly low in order to fill every room… but maybe save it til the world is a healthier place😉). 

Places you can find deals:

• Airbnb.com (if you want $35 off your first stay, ask someone to refer you! Or you can use this link: https://abnb.me/e/X9L069kq08!). Then share your link with everyone you know. If they sign up, you will get credits to use with Airbnb.com in the future too!
• Groupon.com has deals on all sorts of activities. I always price compare to make sure the Groupon price is lower than what we would pay buying on site.
• Museum Memberships. We have a membership to two different museums that get us into museums all around the country. These memberships cost about $180 total, but last I totaled we saved over $600 in museum visits by using the passes just last year!
• State/National Park passes. Look up what these cost in your area. Ask for them for birthday/Christmas from family because they are the gift that keeps on giving!
• We have booked some travel through military sites that are available to use since Ben retired military.
• I have also heard great things about bookvip.com, but I have never used them. They are on my list to check out!

**As a reference, I recently took a 4 day trip with the kids to Nebraska, Iowa, Missouri, & Kansas.  We paid for a couple of activities and spent three nights in hotels, with food, gas, lodging and entertainment I spent under $600 for the four of us! We could have saved money by staying at cheaper hotels/camping and by not doing things that cost extra money, but it was still an affordable trip!

I encourage everyone I know to travel with their families, no matter how old the kids are OR how short the trip is.  Traveling with your families makes memories that last a lifetime!

Anyone else have money saving tips they want to share?

Our trip to Utah was probably my favorite trip of the last few years, and was planned in only 24 hours! We typically spend every 4th of July in Maine with family, but this year even first class plane tickets didn’t give me a peace about flying. So, I made the decision at the last minute to spend the holiday somewhere else. The kids were prepped and ready to leave on Friday, so I started researching places we could drive to for the fourth that still had fireworks and a low amount of covid cases. I mentioned Utah to a friend, and she immediately started telling me about their trip there a few years ago. I was sold! I booked an Airbnb only 24 hours before we set out on our way and I researched what to do along the route, planning to play it by ear once we got there!

This truly was an amazing trip and I wish we could have stayed longer! We got on the road Friday morning and stopped for a picnic lunch and dinner before stopping the night in Gallup, New Mexico, just short of the Arizona border. (Due to the 14 day quarantine and state parks being closed to out of state visitors, there were not many options for things we could do in New Mexico. There were even places that would not allow us to use their restrooms due to us being from out of state).

On Saturday, we set out for Kanab, driving through part of the Petrified Forest and stopping in Winslow, AZ at the Meteor Crater. The kids enjoyed seeing the crater, but it is not something I would recommend paying the money for if it isn’t something you are really interested in. There is a small museum and you can take a tour, but it was expensive for only spending 30min to an hour there!

We got back on the road and made our next stop in Horseshoe Bend, AZ. It was mid-day and hot (100+ degrees) when we set out on this hike, but it was so worth it. We took water and made sure everyone had sunscreen before we set out. There is a new path here that has covered benches on the pathway so we could stop for some shade on the way out and back. The walk took us about 20 min each way, but we did let the kids sit in the shade of some rocks while we took pictures of the view of the bend. The pathway takes you right to the top of the bend and depending on the time of day, the coloring of the bend can vary. Because it was mid-day we saw kayakers and rafters resting below when we got there. I can only imagine how beautiful it would be at sunrise and sunset!

Our next stop was in Kanab at our Airbnb. We unloaded and settled in for a little bit, and then grabbed pizza outside at Peekaboo Canyon Wood Fired Grill. The pizza was amazing (and provided my breakfast for a couple days 😉). The neighbors at the Airbnb told us that we would be able to see the fireworks right from the house so we settled in to play a Washer Toss game and Uno Flip while we waited for them to start. We were able to see fireworks in all directions once they started, to include at the neighbors house, right next door. It was a fantastic way to enjoy the fourth! Before the kids went to bed we had them look through printouts of all the places we could go and they picked where they wanted to go on Sunday!

Sunday morning our first stop was the Belly of the Dragon. The Belly of the Dragon once served as a drainage system for the highway it runs under, and we walked the full length of the tunnel to the dead end on the other side. There are points in the tunnel where you need a flashlight to see where you are walking, but the lighting varies as you travel through it which made for some fantastic pictures and videos! The path continues for another ¼- ½ mile past the tunnel and at the end there is a shaded alcove area where people had built towers of rocks. We stopped here for a snack and for the kids to build their own towers/designs before turning around to head back.

From there we set out for the Moqui Caverns (also known as the Sand Caves) near the Moqui Cave tourist spot. For these we parked on the side of the road and made the climb up to caves in the side of the rock. This gave all the kids an opportunity to act like monkeys, and me a chance to face some fears and have a few small panic attacks. J/k. It was a lot of fun as long as you didn’t look down while you were climbing! The caves were amazing and there were several little tunnels the kids could crawl through. The sand in the caves was nice and cool and we enjoyed exploring through these. The kids read the writing on the wall and were even able to find a couple of their names already carved into the walls when we arrived. After a short stay, we scaled our way back down and back to the car!

It was another picnic lunch day before we set out to drive around the Best Friends Animal Sanctuary. We did not schedule a tour due to covid, but we were still allowed to drive around, hike through the property and see some of the animals. The views here were also amazing and this is where we saw the turtle rock!

We called it an early evening and picked up takeout from Vermillion 45 in Kanab before having a movie night at the Airbnb. This meal was amazing and is another highly recommended restaurant if you ever find yourself in Kanab.

Monday morning we set out on what we expected to be the hardest of our ventures. We made our way to Wire Pass Slot Canyon; a part of the Paria Canyon, Vermilion Cliffs Wilderness Area. The parking for the Wire Pass was 8 miles down an unpaved road that was slow going even with a 4wd, but we eventually made it. The Wire Pass dead ends into Buckskin Gulch which is noted to be the longest slot canyon in the world. The route to the Wire Pass from the parking was a little over a mile and was the least rewarding part of the trek, but the views were still beautiful and we enjoyed seeing wildlife along our walk. We passed quite a few people on our way to the canyon who warned us that we might not be able to make the drop down into the canyon with kids, but we were not going to give up so easily after making it that far. We waited on a couple with dogs to give up and turn around once we reached the canyon and then we jumped right in to try. Another couple recommended putting our backs against one side of the canyon and our feet on the other side to lower us down, so I started out trying that first. I ended up deciding to put one foot on either side and dropped down with no trouble! E helped all the kids over the rock and they dropped down to me with him following at the end!

The slot canyon was such a fun adventure. The temperature in the slot canyon was cool so we took our time walking through. The end of Wire Pass opened up into a nice cool large opening before joining with Buckskin Gulch. We walked part of Buckskin Gulch and then made our way back to the large opening to sit and eat our picnic lunch. We made our way back to the opening of the canyon and climbed up the 8 feet out with E and I helping the kids. The mile walk back in the heat of the day was the hardest part of the hike, and because we had had some water casualties along the way (kids dumping it over their heads, and two spilled water bottles) everyone was out of water by the time we reached the car! We grabbed drinks out of the cooler and settled in for the slow drive back out to the highway. We took it easy the rest of the afternoon, had dinner at Wild Thyme in downtown Kanab (I highly recommend the salted caramel cheesecake), took the kids souvenir shopping, and loaded the car to start home Tuesday morning!

Tuesday, we checked out of our Airbnb and headed for Lake Powell in Arizona. We spent the morning at Lone Rock. This is a fantastic beach where you can drive right down the sand to the water and can even camp out right on the beach. It was gorgeous and we could have spent a whole day tubing or floating here if we had had the time! Next trip we will definitely plan to spend more time here!

We spent the night in New Mexico again on the way home, drove past the Route 66 Auto Museum in the morning and then finished our drive home!

*** The Kanab, UT Visitors Center is fantastic. I definitely recommend stopping there if you are planning to spend anytime in Kanab. The staff are super helpful and can tell you the conditions of all of the canyons on a given day, they can also set you up with tours or guides for any of the trips that would require extra help. There are several canyons that can only be reached by ATV or canyoneering. I have already started planning our next trip back here since there is so much more we want to experience there!

               As much as I would prefer well planned and well thought out vacations, I have enjoyed the ability to go on several last minute trips this summer!  The first was to Colorado.  The weekend we returned from North Carolina we found out that B’s mom was taking a last minute trip there.  We were expecting a last minute trip to somewhere, we just weren’t sure where it would be to!  Since it was within driving distance, we jumped at the opportunity to tag along. 

               We knew we would be picking B up in Breckenridge to meet E and I started messaging friends in Colorado to ask the must dos!  We settled on meeting up in Colorado Springs for the weekend so that we could catch up with friends if they were free and could do some fun things that they recommended!

It had been a long time since I had taken my three kiddos on a road trip on my own and I started looking for fun things to do along the way! We knew we needed to be in Breckenridge on Friday so we left first thing Thursday so we would have time to stop. We stopped to picnic lunch in New Mexico and at a hotel for the night near the Great Sand Dunes once we hit Colorado! Friday morning we got up and headed for the Sand Dunes. The kids had a great time playing in the sand and as much as I wanted to take the Suburban 4wheeling through the Medano Pass, I decided to save that for a trip when I wasn’t the only adult! It was a warm day, so we spent a couple hours playing in the sand and then had a picnic lunch before getting back on the road to Breckenridge!

               We made it into Breckenridge mid-afternoon and explored the town by walking through the closed streets.  We took votes on where to eat dinner, and ended up eating outdoors at Downstairs at Eric’s.  The kids enjoyed watching all the tourists walking through the streets with their dogs and riding bikes while we ate.  The food was fantastic and we decided it was worth a trip back to on Sunday if there was time!  We even wrapped up some food to go because we didn’t want to leave anything behind!

               After we met up with B and E we headed for our hotel in Colorado Springs.  We had decided on a hotel near the Air Force base since it was close to friends and the activities that we were planning to do!  We knew that B had been to Colorado Springs before, but he couldn’t remember anything he had done there so we figured whatever we chose would still be fun!  Our splurge activity for this trip was a jeep tour of Colorado Springs on Saturday morning.  We wanted to fit as many activities as we could into our 48 hours with B, so we got started first thing Saturday!    

               We did a jeep tour with Adventures Out West and our tour guide was fantastic.  We started out with a trip to Helen Hunt Falls, seeing the Broadmoor, and then driving through Cheyenne Canyon and Manitou Springs.  The highlight for the kids was off-roading through the old railroad tunnels that were a part of the original Shortline Railroad.  We ended our tour at the Garden of the Gods where they got to see the Visitors Center and pick out souvenirs from the largest trading post in Colorado.  We did a couple of short hikes to see the Balanced Rock and views of the Colorado Mountains where we were able to take some gorgeous pictures and videos.

After an outdoor lunch at the European Café we headed for Pike’s Peak. We weren’t sure if we would have to shuttle to the top, but because we had kids in boosters in the car, we were able to drive all the way to the top. There was some construction being done, but we were able to go up to the edge anyways to see the surrounding views. We stopped for the kids to play in the snow and climb rocks on our way back down the mountain! Dinner was sushi at an outdoor café before we ended our day back at the hotel!

               Sunday was a little more lowkey.  The girls and I took our time getting up in the morning while the boys played on ipads in the living room of our suite.  We grabbed breakfast to go from the hotel and headed to the Dinosaur Resource Center in Colorado Springs.  We spent an hour there (mostly in the gift shop) and then made our way to Edelweiss for another outdoor lunch.  E and I recalled childhood German learned when we lived there and the kids practiced the German words that were on the back of their menus.  Everything we tried was amazing, if you are ever in Colorado it would be worth making a trip here just for the food! 

                 After lunch we started making our way back to Breckenridge so that B would be able to make the drive back to Texas with his mom Monday morning.  We dropped him off, went to do a little sightseeing on our own and then started the drive back to TX with E helping drive this time.  We made it home on Monday and everyone determined that it was a last minute trip success!  This was the shortest weekend that B had with us this summer, and how good was God that we got to spend 48 hours in a new state without having to worry about the travel time!?  It marked the 32^nd state I have taken the kids to, and the 24^th that we have been to with E & B.  Another travel success and we have determined that once facemask laws are lifted we will definitely make a trip back! 😊

After we returned from Palo Duro, I had the itch to get out of Texas and knew we needed to find somewhere a little further away to travel to. I knew I wanted to be on the road Father’s Day weekend just like the last several years for the change of scenery and I went back and forth with a friend about meeting in the mountains or at the beach. We finally decided on a trip to the mountains of NC. We found an awesome AirBnb that we could share and loaded up to make the 14 hour drive there! Cooler loaded down and car filled up with snacks, we made the trek across the lower southeast USA.

               Since my three kiddos had not been to Louisiana, Mississippi, or Alabama; we planned some strategic stopping points along the way in order to mark them off of our family United States map (this trip marked states 28-30 for the kids and I, and states 19-23 that we have visited with E & B)!  We stopped to picnic in Louisiana and visited the battle grounds in Mississippi.  Our Alabama stop consisted of a short mountain hike and drive as we made our way to Rock City on the border of Alabama, Tennessee and Georgia.  There we wound our way through some twisty roads in order to see views of 7 different states at once (however, I couldn’t tell you where one begins and one ends).  The views were beautiful.

We also made a stop at McKays Used Books in Chattanooga. If you ever find yourself passing through Tennessee, you don’t want to miss out on stopping at one of these warehouse sized bookstores. They are worth putting a mask on for and my kiddos enjoyed browsing and picking out a few new books for the road trip! It was our first trip into a store in 3 months and was worth the wait!

Since we shared an Airbnb in NC, it was by far the nicest place we have stayed to date, and happened to be located right on a small waterfall. Limited phone and internet service for the week made for some excitement, but once again we came prepared to cook our own meals and enjoy our time with friends.

We made a couple of day trips to see local waterfalls that were only a few miles from our house. Cullasaja Falls can be viewed from the road as it’s a bit of a dangerous hike. Bridal Veil is a waterfall that you used to be able to drive under, but is now blocked so you can only walk through. Dry Falls is a fantastic waterfall that you can hike down to and walk under, ducking into caves to stay out of the spray of water! Dry Falls was by far the kids favorite to visit as they loved the caves!

We even took the kids gem mining at a local shop just down the road from where we were staying. And one day we drove into Bryson City to do the train museum scavenger hunt and have lunch outdoors in the little town. The middle of the week we took all the kids on their first white water rafting trip and they got to experience one Class 3 rapid which made for a lot of excitement!

On our last day we drove to Black Rock Mountain State Park in Georgia to do some hiking and see the waterfall there! This waterfall was down about 20 flights in elevation and was not nearly as exciting to see as the others we had visited, but the exercise was good for everyone!

The rest of the time we spent playing games in the house and enjoying the waterfall.  The kids enjoyed skipping stones and jumping rocks around the fire pit almost every day of our trip!

Our trip home consisted of a stop in Nashville to have another picnic with friends who are stationed at Fort Campbell and then a stop in Arkansas for dinner! I love getting the opportunity to travel with friends and family and having friends living all around the country who we can stop and see along the way is a huge bonus to traveling! With family in NC this is definitely a trip we will making again in the future with new stopping places along the way!