It had finally arrived, the day we were going to try and hike though some of the Colorado mountains. I had checked out a few that were rated for novices since we were a little worried about the high altitude. As luck would have it once I found one I thought would work best for us, I also found a couple penny machines that were located nearby. Stay tuned for an upcoming post about our adventure hiking, but for now let me tell you about these slight detours we took.

Dinosaur Ridge was our first stop and it included a small museum and separate gift shop. Now as I mentioned our focus on this day was our hike so we didn’t spent a whole lot of time here. There were some fun decorated stegosaurus statues all around the parking lot.

I quickly headed into the gift shop to grab some bottles of water for our upcoming hike, but that was secondary to tracking down the penny machine that was supposedly inside.

There was a lot of different dinosaur themed items available for purchase and I was honestly tempted by some of it, but wasn’t sure how I would get some of it home. This dino stuff can get pretty heavy.

Just beside a large fire place was where I found the four design manual pressed penny machine. The cabinet artwork was beautiful and I loved all the dinosaur images. Plus as you may have noticed in the photo above these still only cost $0.50 each plus my pennies. The images included some standard dinosaur designs, but all had Dinosaur Ridge included which was a plus for me.

Something that I thought was a great feature for collectors was this laminated paper letting you know about a 5th penny design available at the nearby Discovery Center. Thankfully I already knew about this second location, but this was really a wonderful thing to do.

Fast forward a few hours and we had successfully completed our 2 miles hike (next week you can read all about it). We were all pretty tired and certainly hungry but I wanted to try and press that last penny from the Discovery Center. It took a little while to navigate there and my family wanted to just stay in the car for some air conditioning and more importantly the soft seats.

I parked the car in the lot and headed into the small building. It had some fun decorations around the outside but other than that there wasn’t much going on outside.

Inside was a set of restrooms that seemed pretty popular. The rest of the interior was filled with history of dinosaurs found in this area of Colorado. I felt this would have a been a great place to bring a class of kids on a school field trip. There wasn’t a ton of things in here, but it was still a cute little pit stop.

Now I did mention the restrooms here and of course the dang pressed penny machine was right outside. Always makes for an uncomfortable situation when I’m taking pictures of the penny machine with people walking out of the bathroom. In any case, this was quite an interesting looking machine. I’ve used similar ones in the past with mixed results. These always seem to roll short and this was no different. Thankfully my dino penny pressed about 90% complete which I was happy with. I’ve seen much worse from these machines. The penny also included the location of Morrison, Colorado giving me another fantastic keepsake for this amazing trip.

We had some aches and pains to deal with from our hike but had a wonderful day over all. It was time to head back to our cabin for some rest before we headed back out for more adventures. Stay tuned and Keep on Pressing!

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It seems like a lot of time has passed since the last time we had a new set of pressed pennies released at Walt Disney World. That has changed just this week with the announcement from our friends at Presscoins.com with the news of a new penny machine over at the Port Orleans Riverside Resort.

This is a beautiful resort and it always seems so quiet and peaceful here. Plus you have my personal favorite resort the French Quarter just a short walk away, especially if you are craving some beignets.

The main gift shop at this resort is called Fulton’s General Store. It’s located in the main building near the lobby and food court area.

The store is pretty large with a wide selection of items, and there are even some animated characters on display that you can check out while you shop.

If you enter the store from inside the building near the lobby then you need to walk all the way towards the back to find the new penny machine. There is a door to the outside that is near the bus stops and the machine is right beside those doors. Also just note there is a second 3-design penny machine in this store but those designs have been available for quite awhile and are currently unchanged.

This new set of 8 pressed pennies I think is fantastic. I haven’t seen designs like this before and love the classic look to them. There are images of Steamboat Willie, Oswald and Ortensia, Mickey, Minnie, Pete, Clarabelle and even Horace. These are fantastic and this seems like a fun location for them to be found.

Is this the beginning of other new pressed pennies? Well I certainly think so. With the 100th anniversary coming to a close soon, all those designs will need to be replaced. It just remains to be seen if the old designs will return, or maybe if we are lucky they will release all new designs. Stay tuned and I’ll be sure to share all the updates as soon as we have them. Keep on Pressing!

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After my wife and oldest daughter had a down day at the cabin they were anxious to hit the road and check out the Downtown Aquarium in Denver. From the outside this place looked huge, and it was owned and operated by the Landry’s Company who you may be familiar with as they also run all the Rainforest Cafe restaurants. I was curious to see how it looked inside.

We had quite a bit of a drive from our cabin to the aquarium, so once we arrived and got inside we needed a quick pit stop. There was a long hallway where the restrooms were located and as you may guess I ran into two pressed penny machines. Always nice to start things off with some new coins for our collection.

The first machine was a standard 4-design manual model. It has been updated to the new price point, and also accepted credit / debit or digital payments. I’m not sure if I even need to mention this anymore since this certainly seems to be the majority of machines now.

A little further down the hallway was the second machine, this time the larger 8-design version. Touch screen, all the standard payment options. The coin designs were cute but seem to be similar to many other aquariums but these did include the location on each coin which I always like.

With those freshly pressed pennies stashed away in my pocket it was time to head in and see some marine life. Some of the rooms had really high glass ceilings that brought in a lot of natural light which was great. The exhibits were well detailed but some of the pathways were a bit narrow causing some congestion with guests.

The machines kept rolling at this place. We had barely left the first area of the aquarium and I came across a collectible medallion set. The cabinet design was cool and I really liked the different shades of blue. The medallions have images of a Coconut Crab, River Otter, Tiger and a Mystic Mermaid.

The reverse side of all the coins was the same and had the Downtown Aquarium Denver, CO logo along with the Shark mascot and a couple sea stars.

We continued enjoying each section of the aquarium. Some of the tanks were enormous with amazing panoramic views inside.

They did even have a pretty big section for some land animals including a couple tigers. The theming in some of these areas honestly reminded me of the Rainforest Cafe dining rooms. I’m pretty sure the foliage was real, but some of it did seem like it could be fake just for ease of maintenance I guess.

My kids found a touch tank that is always a favorite of theirs. Plus we found some smaller tanks with some very unique creatures I don’t think I’ve ever seen before.

Eventually we came to an area that had a stingray “petting” area, a little snack bar and more importantly for me at least the last two pressed penny machines. The designs in this set included the shark mascot, an Eel, some type of big cat, and a couple turtles.

I quickly passed by the creepy looking shark donation container but tossed some money inside just to make sure he didn’t attack me. The last machine had penny designs of an octopus, scuba diver, snake and a couple sea horses.

At this point we had finished the entire aquarium but their restaurant had been calling my name. Earlier in the day I checked online and was able to secure a reservation just to make sure we could eat there. Our timing was almost perfect but the kind staff were happy to seat us anyways.

The restaurant was themed to look like we were in among some a coral reef. You could see a bunch of smaller tanks along the entrance walls, but inside there were very large tanks for our viewing pleasure during our meal.

My wife enjoyed a friend shrimp platter, and I decided to stick to land and ordered a chicken tortilla wrap. These were fine, nothing special but as we have become accustomed to at our local theme parks it seems like we were more paying for the ambience than the food. After our meal we checked out the gift shop for a few souvenirs and then hopped back in our car to head home for the day. I was pretty impressed overall with this aquarium and was happy with the total number of pressed pennies and medallions I was able to pick up as well. Now it was time to enjoy some quiet time at our cabin before heading out on our next adventure. Stay tuned and Keep on Pressing!

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My youngest daughter and I had be out exploring Colorado and the greater Denver area all day but wanted to try and visit one last spot before we headed back to our cabin. We drove up into the mountains with beautiful scenic views extending all around us. At the top we found our final destination the Buffalo Bill Museum and Grave.

After parking our car we headed towards the Museum and headed inside. The first floor had the admission counter and some amazing artwork along the walls all depicting Buffalo Bill.

I’ll admit that I don’t know much about Bill Cody so it seems like I was in the right place. At first I thought the museum seemed a bit small on this first floor but was amazed once we headed downstairs.

There was display after display filled with the history and whole life story of Buffalo Bill Cody. Starting from his childhood all the way up to his death and everything in between. It was really fascinating and I wished I could have spent a little more time there but our day was quickly coming to an end.

Right next door to the museum was the Pahaska Tepee. Inside was a small restaurant and quite an extensive gift shop.

There was a lot of Buffalo Bill items, but then it continued into anything and everything you could imagine. Colorado themed souvenirs, mood rings, bumper stickers. You name it, they probably had it inside.

Off to one side of the store there was a small room with a separate entrance and exit. This is where I found the two pressed penny machines I had researched about online before our trip. Both machines only had one design each, thankfully they were different designs. The first machine had a penny design of Buffo Bill on his horse. Unfortunately the machine rolled a bit short and the top of the design was cut off.

The second machine was right next to the first one and pressed my penny with an image of an Elk among some trees and the amazing mountains in the background. This machine also rolled a bit short cutting off the left side a bit. As you may be able to see in the photo above there was also a medallion machine available but one of the designs was out of stock. I’ve since tried contacting the gift shop to see if it’s available again but so far to date that medallion design of Buffalo Bill seems to be permanently unavailable. If I ever do acquire it somehow in the future I’ll be sure to follow up with additional photos.

With the pennies pressed and out day pretty much over we had just one last stop to make before we headed out. Behind the gift shop and up a small hill was where we found Bill Cody’s final resting place. It was quite the sight, surrounded by a wrought iron fence and made up of large white stones. We paid out respects to this American legend and then started our way back down to our car.

These are the types of days that I really have a lot of fun with. It’s tiring and sometimes I feel like I don’t always give adequate time to each of our stops alongs the way. I was able to mark off quite a few places on my wish list for this trip all in this single day and felt quite accomplished but very tired. We couldn’t wait to get back to the cabin for a nice home cooked meal with the rest of our family. Don’t worry though we still have plenty more days on our Colorado Trip and I’ve got plenty more penny machines to visit.

Keep on Pressing!

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Continuing my adventure day with my youngest daughter we found ourselves in need of a sweet treat and thankfully on my wish list was the Hammond’s Candy Factory. There were two different parts to this, one side was where you went for the Factory Tour (and also the Penny machine), and the other side was the candy store.

We first headed inside of the Factory Tour section and after a short wait were guided into a back area with a large wall of windows that looked inside the active candy factory. There were candy makers working on all different types of sweets. Back out in the waiting area is where the penny machine was located, unfortunately during our visit it was out of order. More on that a little later.

First we needed to do some shopping for candy and their retail store had us covered and then some. The walls were lined with all different kinds of sweets, as well as tables and other displays just jammed packed with confectioneries.

There was even a large bulk candy display along the back wall. I thought this was all Hammond’s creations but there was a lot of items here you would find in your local grocery store or candy shop with a similar offering.

There was still a lot of items that are made by Hammond’s in the factory we had just visited a short while ago. We picked up all different types of sour candy, chocolate covered items like pretzels, and different types of candied fruit.

I think in total we spent almost one hundred dollar on candy for our family to enjoy during the rest of our trip. There was one Hammond’s item I wish I had picked up more of and that was their humongous peanut butter cups. I love Reese’s but they didn’t hold a candle to these monsters. The Hammond’s versions were at least twice as thick, and had way more peanut butter. I only got two one for my wife and myself to enjoy but that was a mistake. During the rest of our trip I was hoping to get back here for a few items to bring back with us to Florida but we just couldn’t fit it in our schedule.

Before we leave Hammonds let’s review the penny machine over near the tour part of the building. As I mentioned this machine was out of order during our visit. I did try it anyways, but the slide was jammed so I couldn’t even get my coins inside to test it. I also asked a couple of the staff members if they had extra coins available but they did not. Although they did mention that was great idea so maybe that will be something they offer in the future if you ever visit and it’s not working, never hurts to ask.

After our trip I waited a few weeks before sending a package to Hammond’s with some coins asking if someone could help press the pennies since the machine was not working during my trip. It didn’t take too long before I received the pennies back in the mail. The designs on each coin are all themed for the Candy Factory and store which is such a great touch and makes for a fantastic souvenir.

As my daughter and I sat in our rental car eating probably a bit more sugar than we should have, we were giggling and just having a great time together. Our day was still young and we had quite a few other places to visit before heading back to our cabin. Stay tuned for where we visit next and as always Keep on Pressing!

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