Thursday, May 22, 2008

By the pool

I was watching the news last night and they advertised an alternative to going to the park. Arizona is backwards in that way, we can’t go to the park in the summer time because it’s too hot. Even if you want to brave the 110 degree heat, the equipment is too hot to touch. So their teaser ad for an alternative caught my attention.

They did a piece about a local indoor play area. It really did look pretty cool. It has an arcade, a café, a great big jungle gym thing. All done up in a jungle theme. Pretty neat! They didn’t mention until the end that it costs $8.50 for kids and $3.50 for adults. That means that it would cost me $20.50 for my kids and I to go play. I don’t see how that is an alternative to the park. The park is free.

So today I rediscovered something that is free, the pool in my neighborhood. Technically, we pay for it with our association dues but it doesn’t cost extra to use it. I’m already paying for it so I might as well get my money’s worth. We went up there today and had a blast. We swam for almost two hours. It was great. Everyone was wiped out. And it was totally and completely free. No gas used, no miles on the car, no eating out, no charges to get in, nothing. I will even confess that I didn’t get dressed today. I went from jammies, to bathing suit, and back into jammies. So it even saved on laundry! Now, that is what I call an alternative to the park.

What are some free or low cost things you are planning this summer?

Pic by: Brunna Peretti

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1 comment:

Anonymous said...

We have a place like that here - $8/kid and $4 for me just to go in and supervise them. Ugh. No thank you.

I plan to take advantage of friends with pools, $1 movies, evenings at the beach and lots of water fun in the yard this summer.