Road Trip - Day 1

What a full day! The two of us, our two teenagers, and our 4yr old got a great start on our family vacation/road trip to Las Vegas, the Grand Canyon, Slide Rock State Park, and maybe a drive-by past Joshua Tree. We made it to Vegas in less than 6 hours. We even made a few "pit stops" on the way. We brought snacks for the car so we wouldn't have to stop for lunch, including a huge bag of pretzels that was accidentally dumped on the floor. Chip clips aren't as strong as they appear ; ) Also, our recent purchase of the Kia Soul http://www.kia.com/#/soul/explore has been the best economical decision in our married life so far! As you can see in the photo, it averaged 35mpg so we made it to Vegas on less than 10 gallons of gas. At $3.78 a gallon, we spent $37.80 to drive here, which is less than ONE airline ticket to Vegas, much less 5 tickets. We fit luggage, snacks, and activities for 5 in this car!

You can also see by the photo that it is a sauna in Vegas. The hotel had a sale price in April for $50 per night, so we booked far in advance. What I didn't anticipate was the $18 per night "resort" fee. This is hardly a resort, and the pool closed at 7pm....poor Mikey :( The gym closed early as well, which is included in the resort fee. Lastly, we splurged for a dinner out without using a coupon because we met some relatives at a basic American cafe. Needless to say, we need to be more careful dining on this vacation.

Lastly, check out what I packed for this trip: In addition to Mikey's Trunki from Melissa & Doug http://www.melissaanddoug.com/trunki-terrance-blue that I paid $20 for with a promotion last Christmas, we packed tons of free samples we've received from multiple sources. We have free shampoo, conditioner, lotion and Nexcare bandage samples. You can't forget all of the free toothpaste that we get from the dentist. You can take as many as you want and they make great spares when the kids run out. So the kids won't get bored, I stocked up on activity books from GTM and some dollar bargains from Target.

Time to turn in for the night. Tomorrow, we'll pick up the Las Vegas discount booklet and find some bargains for the next few days.