Family vacation on a budget:

The question is how to enjoy a vacation when on a budget. Some people say that the best things in life is free. I believe that this quote belongs to the speaker. What he is talking about and which side of wealth he lives on. I also believe in the quote, "if you've never had steak, peanut butter is just fine."

When my wife and I were bringing up our three children, a boy and girl twins at the age of four and an older boy who was seven years old, we took an inexpensive vacation which we all loved.

We had lived in Minnesota for several years without taking a real vacation. Just on a whim my wife and I decided to take a tour through Minnesota and inside Canada. I had a week off from my job at the fence manufacturing company. Our dream was to just take it easy and stop at all the reasonably priced sites that were along the way.

Our first stop was a rip off. We read the signs along the highway which read, among other words, "beautiful waterfall." The name escapes me. It cost two dollars to pull onto the lot and look over a wooden fence at a normal ten foot high water fall. Not very wide and certainly not a thing of interest. Several other cars had stopped here also. I doubt that the man taking the money even owned the land.

This made us aware of deception. We never stopped again without investigating the site from a reliable source. We began visiting the chamber of commerce in each city that we passed through and retrieve maps and articles on legitimate sites.

We stopped at a playground that was quite unique. Their was a tower that resembled the leaning tower of Pisa. It was about twenty feet high with steps inside that were wide enough for two people to pass by each other. The kids, wife and I enjoyed exploring the castle. There were rocks, boulders, sand and grass to play on in the yard area. We remained there most of the afternoon. We then went to a nice, but not too expensive motel.

We enjoyed swimming in the pool before going for nice meal at a nearby cafe. After dinner we watched some videos that we had brought with us. I brought my own VCR and connected it to the television antenna. In those days, most motels didn't have Video recorders and the television usually didn't play good shows for kids.

The next day we took our time getting on the road. We drove to Duluth, Minnesota. At the chamber of Commerce we found that we could board the large, "Icebreaker" (a special purpose ship designed to move and

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