Our Frugal Spring Break

This post is only two months late, but I figured better late than never. My kids keep begging me to write about our Spring Break. We were supposed to go to Hawaii, but our economic situation dictated that we had better stay close by and go cheap. So, we went to White Sands with plenty of sand, just no ocean.

However, we had a blast. We love to go camping in the motor home, or "rocket turd" as my kids call it. White Sands is a little known National Park close to Green River, UT. Our friends took us there a few years ago and it has quickly become one of our favorite places. It is hard to find as you exit off of I-70 on a ranch exit dirt road for about an hour. Once you arrive it looks somewhat like Moab. There are hills of sand dunes everywhere. Driving there takes us about 4 hours from our home. On the drive there the wind was blowing so hard that we about got blown off the road. By the first morning the wind had stopped and the temperature was in the low 60's for the entire four days we were there. We put on our jackets and climbed every sand dune we could find, including some that were hundreds of feet tall. The boys love the freedom and I do too!

One of our favorite games was "follow the leader" with the four wheelers. Every day we would take a morning trail drive. The scenery was spectacular- red rocks, wind blown rock formations, beautiful canyons and more. Usually I or Gerry would switch off leading the trail ride. The kids would be in the middle and the opposite parent at the rear. Then we would come back to camp for lunch. The afternoon and evening were spent riding the sand dunes.

I must say that I have become somewhat of a dutch oven chef. Normally I don't enjoy cooking, but I sure do when we are camping! Perhaps it's a change from the normal every day cooking, I don't know, but I enjoy it. The boys beg to have frito chili pie every time we go camping. Dutch oven carmel apple crisp has become my specialty.