Vacation Rundown!

So we got back from vacation Monday. We had fun, the kids had fun and we came in under budget from what we had saved-which means we have that much we will save for the next vacation.   

So here's the rundown.. 
We drove down to Springfield, Illinois and back home, taking backroads and avoiding four lane highways and interstates when possible. 

I spent about $150 before we left on snacks and toys for the kids to keep them occupied. Our plan was to get hot sandwiches from a fast food restuarant for lunches and eat the chips and drinks we had in the car from my shopping trip. I put together a homemade happy meal for the kids, complete with a toy for the lunches.  

For breakfast, we made sure we stayed in hotels that had a continental breakfast which we took advantage of all but one morning. That one morning, we went down to breakfast and the breakfast bar was packed, so we decided to swing by Mcdonalds and grab sandwiches. 

Suppers we ate out.  Usually the kids ended up finishing their food at the hotel, but hey, either they ate it or we ate it for them.  

The entire trip was more about the drive and what we found than what was in Springfield when we got there, although we did enjoy seeing the Lincoln sites in Springfield.  We are family genealogists, so when we saw a graveyard, we stopped and perused.  The kids weren't so sure about it, but after awhile they figured out what we were doing and had fun spotting graveyards.  

Before we went, we tried to find as much as we could that was free to help with the costs.  We did do a few things that cost money, but I would say those few things were worth it.  I do have to say, while we did write down how much we needed for those and figured more for parking, a few of the costs were wrong so just make sure you have a cushion for fees that are more than websites said they would be.  

The big towns we hit were, St Joseph Missouri. We drove around the historic district and took some pictures-especially the house where Jesse James was killed.  The next big town was Hannibal, Missouri where we took pictures of anything Mark Twain we could find.  We then went on to Springfield where we did everything Lincoln we could find.  After Springfield we drove through Carthage and Nauvoo for Mormon history.  We spent our third night in Cedar Rapids, Iowa. Drove through the Amana Colonies-which we TOTALLY planned wrong because we went through those on early Sunday morning. We drove through Ames and stopped at the Historic Fort Dodge in Fort Dodge, Iowa.  We spent our last night in Le Mars, Iowa and ate at the Blue Bunny Ice Cream shop/museum before we headed for home.   

Andrew's favorite part of the trip was parking underground in Springfield. He just enjoyed that! Eva's favorite part was her 'superhero ice cream' in LeMars. I honestly don't remember the actual name of it, but she certainly enjoyed.   

All in all costwise, we spent about $800, which isn't too bad for a family of 5 on a 4 day vacation.   We had fun, and that is the important part.  

We also have a ton of snacks leftover. :)

-Tabitha