PogoPass + Hyatt homeschool "field trips"

Two cool things happened at the end of October/beginning of November.

The first thing is that another unschooler made me aware of a Halloween sale on something I'd never heard of: PogoPass. Basically, you pick your location (there are only a half-dozen or so, and we were fortunate that south-central Texas was one of them), and for a flat fee, you get admission to dozens of museums, zoos, and activities in your area. They were already $5 off of the normal $100 cost, but for Halloween, they were on sale half price! So we got one for Mal and one for me for a TOTAL of $100. We didn't get one for James because often, the weekends are blacked out and, ya know, poor guy has a day job.

Since Mal had been asking to go to the Cameron Park Zoo in Waco for months, we decided to spend a day in Waco... right about the time I got an email from Hyatt "reminding" me that I had 19,000 points set to expire in January if I didn't use them. I had no idea! I guess we racked those up back in October 2020 when we spent three nights at Hyatt Lost Pines. That was a GREAT place, and SUPER expensive, but we'd also had to cancel a planned trip to California (Disneyland, LEGOland, etc.)  due to Covid, so we decided to splurge.

So at that point, our day trip turned into a 2-day trip to Waco, with a free night at a hotel! Mal's favorite!

We went to the Cameron Park Zoo, the Dr. Pepper Museum, and the Mayborn Museum on the Baylor campus (which I didn't know existed), stayed at a nice hotel with free breakfast, and only spent about $20 on food.

Mal's fave: sliding with the otters!

We had a great, relaxed time, and we still get to visit the zoo one more time before next Halloween!

Later in the month, we went to The Thinkery in Austin, and this time we brought James along. Though we had to pay for his admission, at this point, the PogoPass had paid for itself.

And now, Mal and I are using up our hotel points. We're halfway through a 2-night stay in San Antonio. Yesterday, we went to Rush Adventure Park, and then played Monster Mini Golf.

Today we're planning to go to the San Antonio Zoo, then to see the Christmas lights at the Riverwalk. In the morning, we'll visit the Witte Museum before we head back home (stopping at Wonder World if time and weather permit).

Again, we're staying at a hotel with a pretty good breakfast spread, so are only having to buy food for one or two other meals, and everything else we're doing is either already paid for or free!

Mal was disappointed when he learned James wasn't coming with us, though. Which is one reason we're ALL looking forward to our Christmas vacation! We'll have to pay for it all, but going places as a family is pretty valuable.