Stade's Fall Festival

Stade's Dairy Farm is a "Christian-based" farm about 25 miles west of where we live. Each fall Stade's puts together a Fall Festival - there is a corn maze, wagon rides, pumpkin pickin', games and rides for kids, petting zoo, etc. We thought it would be fun to take the kids there.

When we pulled up to the place we immediately went into near shock. There were thousands of cars and the place was teeming with people like flies on stink. I asked the parking attendant if we could get a map of the lot so we could find our car when we were done having fun. He said today was pretty calm - it would be a real mess on Sunday when the Christian rock band comes. Evidently Stade's packs it in from 10-1 for its weekly Sabbath worship.

Stade's completely gets how to cash in on family fun, though, especially since the median income of the adult attendees was probably about $35,000 per year. You see, Stade's employs the ticket method for paying for things (which is a great way to get people to forget about how much the tickets cost and spend away!). So we picked up $20 worth of tickets (42) and off we went!

All in all, Stade's came through on its promise for family fun. We even got to meet Stade himself, which was a true pleasure. The weather was great and the kids enjoyed the pony ride and pumpkin patch the most. The total damage - $20 for pony rides and games, $6 for a modestly sized pumpkin and $8 for a dozen apple donuts. Based on what it looked like everyone else was investing in Stade's, I'd say we got out of there relatively unscathed from an economic perspective.