Got the grandkids out for a couple weeks

[gcal]

Did the Grand Canyon, indian ruins, museums, desert, mountains. You what part they like best? The few days we spent at KOA park with good wifi and TV reception and a pool. Last year we did Yellowstone, Devils Tower, museums, the Badlands, Mt Rushmore, and Crazy Horse and the Cody Rodeo with them. You know what they liked best? The days they spent at the Rocking Bar J ( or something like that) campground with good wifi and TV reception and a pool.

What's  the point? If they come to us next summer, we'll just find a KOA somewhere with good wifi, TV reception and a pool, and sit there for 2 weeks. It will save us a pile of money.

 

[GypsyDogs]

LOL- Sheesh, kids these days..

 

[SoulRaven]

hehe The youth of today...

We were upper class in the camping dept.... We had a tent! And an old Coleman stove, and sleeping bags. And I enjoyed every second of it!

 

[ttpadilla]

You didn't say how old they are, but in my experience, the more activities you try to pack into a vacation, the less anyone enjoys it. If they're school-age, they may be burned out from the school year and need some time to do nothing for a while.

I didn't have a lot of money when my kids were growing up, and we never really traveled, but they still tell me they have great memories of cooking meals together, playing board games, watching movie rentals by the fire with popcorn and hot chocolate, going to the gym to work out together, even playing video games together. They have never once said, "Oh, remember that time we went to Magic Mountain, that was the best day of our life!" or Disneyland, or anything else that cost a lot of money. They've never mentioned the multiple trips to the zoo! Sure, they enjoyed it well enough, but it was really just an activity to get us out of the house. Swimming pools, beaches, lakes, and rivers are as popular with kids as they are with adults. I could happily spend weeks at the beach doing absolutely nothing!

Instead of scheduling activities for them to enjoy, spending a ton of money, and feeling hurt when they don't appreciate it, let them tell you what they'd like to do. "Just hang out," can be a perfectly acceptable answer.

 

[Bela's Mom]

When I was very young, my parents took us to Washington D.C., Grand Canyon, California and places in between.  I barely remember any of it.

What I remember most are the weekends at my grandmother's week-end cabin in the country.....fishing and swimming in the pond, climbing trees, roaming through the woods, picking berries and wild grapes, building tents out of boards and old sheets, making ice cream in an old crank ice cream machine, catching fire flies, and best of all....driving her station wagon through the pasture!

 

[gcal]

DRopped the grandkids off at Denver International Airport this AM. Eerily quiet without them.

On our way into Wyoming now. Depressingly green and domesticated. Sorry all you people from Wyoming. But except for a bit of hilliness and the odd mesa feature, one might as well be in the midwest. There's even snow fences all over the hills. Oops. Sorry, all you people from the midwest.

.

 

[gcal]

Passed Shoshone and things got much more intereeting. If you come this way, get off the Interstate and take WY 20, the Wind River Scenic Bwy route. Awesome.

 

[akrvbob]

In all the Rocky Mountains states (Wyoming, Montana and Colorado, the Rockies are in the west side and the east side is high plains. Same with Idaho except the Rockies are in the north and High Plains are in the south. The same is true of Washington, Oregon and California Sierras and Cascades on the West and desert on the east. Very simple explanation, the mountain ranges in the west get all the rain and the east gets none.

Whatever else you do out West, be sure you drive the Beartooth Highway to or from Montana into Yellowstone. Spectacular beyond words!
Bob