Frontier Texas ~ A great way to learn Texas History

Okay, so we took the kids to the Alamo once, and frankly they found it pretty boring. I have heard it is getting a revamp and if it turns out anything like Frontier Texas I am sure we will love it.

Frontier Texas, which is located in Abilene, is simply a great way to learn a little about Texas history. It is basically a museum that in addition to more standard museum type displays features interactive displays called spirit guides (pretty cool holographic projectors) that tell you stories about the old west.

Carol, Ethan and Crystal at Frontier Texas

The spirit guides represent real people who lived and died on the Texas plains. My favorite story was of Britt Johnson a slave who was given his freedom after an Indian attack so he could go find his missing wife and two daughters (his oldest son was killed in the attack).

Britt Johnson's Spirit Guide at Frontier Texas

It was such a great story that it was used as the basis of the John Wayne movie The Searchers. I guess Hollywood wasn't ready for the true story yet or even realized black cowboys existed.

After getting his wife and daughter back Britt became a teamster hauling freight all over Texas until his death at the hands of a Kiowa raiding party in 1871. Britt made them pay though. He was surrounded by 173 shells from his shot gun and pistols when his body was found. I would love to see the true story done as a movie today.

The other spirit guides are very entertaining also, Buffalo Hunters, Indian Chiefs, and people who lived with the Indians. Everyone is represented and while Frontier Texas talks about the hostilities between White Men and Indians it does not sugar coat history for either side. Frontier Texas really makes the history of the time come alive and will entertain people of all ages.

The tour through Frontier Texas starts with a movie about life in the old west.

Human scalps on a war shield

The kids in front of a Tee Pee

A Bison Fighting a Wolf on the plains.

The final room is a theater in which you sit on swiveling chairs for a night adventure on the plains. This room might be a little scary for small kids when the thunder and lightning start, but it is a great finish to your time at Frontier Texas.  It is more then a movie and you have to swivel in your seat to see everything as it happens. It will keep you moving and you will b e entertained.

The whole museum takes about 2.5-3 hours to go through and is very reasonably priced. If you are headed through Abilene Texas it is well worth the stop and Abilene also has a great little zoo complete with giraffe feeding opportunities. I'll post pictures and review the zoo later.

So if your road tripping through Texas and find yourself in Abilene, don't skip this great attraction. Have you been to Frontier Texas? Please share your experiences in the comments.

All My Movies ~ By Bolide Software

It doesn't always have to be about travel does it? Families still like movie nights, we at least my family does.

I have recently come across a really cool piece of software for cataloging movie software and I want to share it with you.

All My Movies by Bolide

I'm a big movie geek. A couple years ago I started converting all my DVDs over to digital files. It saved a lot of space. My movies took up three or for full sized book cases in my home, so when I say it saved space I mean it saved a lot of space. 

The problem with digital files though is I used to be able to just look at my book case until a movie kind of struck my fancy. Hmmm, there's Armageddon, haven't seen that in a while.  It's a lot harder to do that when your staring at directories on a computer. This software will give you a virtual bookshelf of your movies, It uses the actual DVD art.

Not only that it links to IMDB (The Internet Movie Database). It will display all the movies information on the screen. You can find movies by actor, genre, year, title, just about any way you can imagine.

Virtual bookshelf on the left ~ Movie info from IMDB on the right

You can use it with DVDs or Blue Ray disc as a way to catalog what you have. You can even use it to track those movies if you loan then to friends. Both pretty useful features for those with hard copies of their movies.

For people like me who buy there movies in digital formats now the database will also link directly to files in your hard drive and you can use the virtual launcher to play the movie. To me that is the programs most awesome feature. Grab you soda and popcorn and then pick the movie you want from the virtual bookshelf and hit the play button to start the movie. 

It was exactly what I was looking for when I started looking for movie cataloging software. The only functionality I would add is the ability to export a movie or movies to a USB drive, Phone or Tablet, but that is a small caveat for such an awesome piece of software (Heck it might even do it and I just don't know how yet).

You can download a demo on their website here... BOLIDE SOFTWARE

Six Flags ~ Not as expensive as you might think.

We love Six Flags. If you read this blog for any amount of time you will probably be able to figure that out. But we are definitely  not made out of money so how do we keep the costs down and the fun up.

The prices listed in this blog are current as of 12/03/15.

Our first year at Six Flags we had memberships. For about $87.70 a month for the 5 of us we could go to either Texas Six Flags and it included the dining pass which gave us lunch and dinner at Six Flags Fiesta Texas, but not anywhere else. It also included standard parking free. If you go enough to make it worth your while it was a good deal. Average cost was about $1052 a year.

Memberships have gotten better though. Now with the combo gold membership you can go to any regular Six Flags park (although most of the dedicated water parks are still not included, only the closest one to your home park is part of the deal) and you can now eat at any park by upgrading to the combo gold dinning pass. You also still get free parking with either gold memberships or gold passes. A little more expensive but probably still worth it (when I priced it out it would have come to about $100 a month for the five of us. So about $1200 a year.)

It is a good deal of you can't come up with the money for passes but plan to make a lot of trips to Six Flags (like we do). If you go the membership route you do have to stay a member for a year. You can quit any time after that with a months notice (if you give notice in June you will have to pay for July, but then you would be done.)

If you can afford to pay it all at once however passes are definitely the best deal. 5 combo gold passes with 5 combo gold season dining passes came to $867.48. That comes out to $173.50 per person. If we go 10 times that would be Six Flags with lunch, dinner and a snack for $17.30 a visit.

A ticket bought online is $49.99 

Average for cost for a meal at the park is $11 

Average cost of a snack is $5

So a ticket, two meals and a snack would be $77

Oops, almost forgot, this year's combo gold dining passes and memberships come with an all you can drink beverage cup for free. That's going to be worth at least another $15 bucks a visit.

That's $92 a day. If you go twice that's $184 bucks. You just can't do it all in one day anyway. I tried, it doesn't work.

The Six Flags website says the dining pass pays for itself after four visits, but if you consider that sports bottle it makes that money back even quicker. 

2016 season passes are good now and last till the end of next year. So basically we are already saving money every visit.

Go on weekdays when Hotels are less expensive and the lines are not as long. We usually find a great Hotel with two queen beds and a sofa and with a full complimentary breakfast for about $60 a night in Dallas or San Antonio. We usually start two nights.

Don't Miss Out! See Today's Top Hotel Deals at TripAdvisor

Gas is cheap right now. Less then $50 each way and we are 5 hours a way. Our average trip is less then $300 bucks.

Heck if I lived in Dallas or San Antonio it would be an even better deal. We'd go to Six Flags just to eat.

Welcome to our blog!

Welcome to our family travel blog. I know, family travel blog right? Don’t worry, it’s not going to be one of those “look at cute pictures of my kids on vacation” type of travel blogs. I’m not going to tell you what cute thing my little girl did petting a stingray at t he Dallas Children’s Aquarium. It will be more like, how can you and your family get the best deal at the Dallas Aquariums, which Dallas Aquarium is best for kids and should you eat the food at the Rain Forest Cafe inside the Dallas World Aquarium.

From Hotel deals to amusement park secrets to how to get along on long car trips this blog is for people who travel with their families.

All that being said, here is a cute picture of my kids.

Ethan Crystal and Carol at Fright Fest ~ Six Flags Fiesta Texas 2014

Our fun family has been traveling Texas and a few other states for years. We have found great deals, great fun, and a few things to stay away from. From amusement parks, to zoo’s, museums, theaters and fairs and just about anything else we can do as a family. We have learned a lot and we want to share that knowledge with you.

Some of the topics will include:

Are Season Passes at amusement parks worth the money? What about Dining passes? What about flash passes?

What museums are cool in Texas? Best Free museums?

Getting a good hotel for a good price.

How to make sure your toddler gets to have as much fun as you do. How young is too young to take kids to a concert?

And there might be a cute story or anecdote along the way, but hopefully they wont get in the way. I’d love to hear comments too, whether you agree with a post, want to recommend some family fun, or want to tell us just how wrong we are. I hope you enjoy our blog.