Visiting Our State Parks

Today hubby and I headed out to visit the Old Las Vegas Mormon Fort State Park.  This year we are going to make a concerted effort to visit every state park in Nevada and complete the "state parks passport program" which rewards people who visit all of the parks with a free annual park entry for the following year.  For this year, we picked up an annual membership (with a senior discount!) in order to visit all of the parks (an annual senior membership costs only $30 while paying the individual entrance price could cost well over $100 if we visit every one of the parks).  Each of the parks in our state is unique in its own way and each park also hosts lots of cool activities--from ranger-led night hikes to a big cast iron cooking event that draws competitors from all over the west which will be happening at the Mormon Fort next month (needless to say we will probably drop in again just to check out this popular event!). 

P.S. since I can't resist sharing good links, today is National Pancake Day and IHOP is giving away free pancakes (more info on where to get your free pancakes here).

In Praise of the Annual Pass

One of the ways we stretch our entertainment dollars is to buy annual passes for activities that we do often.  In addition to a lifetime pass that hubby bought for the National Parks (he bought this a couple of years ago when the lifetime parks pass for seniors was $10, it has since gone up to $80), we also have an annual pass for Nevada State Parks which means instead of paying a daily entry fee, for a flat rate we can go to any park, any time, just by showing the pass.

When we first moved to Las Vegas we got an annual shows pass which meant we could go to a wide variety of Las Vegas shows--from stage shows to comedy shows to concerts, etc--all for less than $100 for both of us for the entire year.  When we had the nieces come and visit for a couple of months we bought annual passes for them for the local children's museum (even though they were only here for a couple of months, the low cost for an annual pass more than saved us money when we took them there about once a week).  You can find annual passes for museums, parks, zoos, science centers, and many other activities; this is a great way to save money if you use the pass often enough throughout the year.