Over 250 Pennies!

I now have 254 pressed pennies (and a pressed quarter)!  My friends The Wrights have brought me a bunch as they traveled around the eastern part of the country. I received one from my Grandma's friend, Mel, all the way from London! We went on vacation to Michigan again this summer and stayed with a friend in St. Louis, she gave me a pressed penny from their zoo.

Here are some updated pictures of my collection:

Oops, Haven't Updated in a While!

So, once school got under way we kind of forget about this blog.  Now that it's Summer again, time to think about pressed pennies!  Mom and I just counted and I know have 215 pennies... so awesome!

Sorry to those of you that sent me pennies since last September since I didn't recognize your contribution, but I do really appreciate it!!!  I'm trying to remember where all these awesome squashed pennies came from now!

My Grandma Darlene and Grandpa David went on a trip to the Grand Canyon in Arizona and brought me back nearly a full penny book!  That was a pretty exciting souvenir! 

I went on my first scout campout to Beaver's Bend in Oklahoma back in April and we found a couple of penny machines there in the campgrounds, too!

My friends Nicholas and Natalie brought me back a penny from their Smokie Mountains vacation.  And my friend Tehran brought me a penny from Atlanta Zoo!

My former Cubscout Master, Mr. Ellis, brought me several from NASA, too!

Hopefully my mom will help me do a better job of recording the additions to my penny collection from now on!  If you happen to be going somewhere neat this summer, pick me up a penny!!!

Michigan Vacation 2012

My family and I took a trip from Texas to Michigan to visit my grandparents this summer.  We made it a point to visit as many penny machines as we could find!  During our road trip, we got pennies from Michigan, Illinois, Indiana, Missouri and Arkansas - I filled up an entire Michigan Penny Collector book and had even more!

Michigan - 
We visited Ludington State Park to get pennies and a medallion, but the Big Sable Point Lighthouse did not have the medallions.  We got 4 pennies, though.

Pennies at the state park.

 While in Ludington, we were happy to find that a lady that worked at the Lake Michigan Car Ferry (The SS Badger) would go up and get us the pennies, they're located on the actual boat and we couldn't go up there unless we paid for a ferry trip!
My family and I got to ride the Dunes at Mac Wood's Dune Rides in Mears.  We also found a machine there (hadn't even planned that one!), with 3 pennies.  We also bought the Michigan Penny Collector book there too.

Surprise penny machine at the Dunes!

 We visited the Dutch Village in Holland, Michigan and found the penny machine in the Wooden Shoe Shop.  My brother and I really wanted a pair of clogs, but we just got the 4 pennies instead.

The shoes were cool!

Pentwater, Mi is a neat little tourist town and the penny machine is located at the Cosmic Candy Company... they had all kinds of fun candy and fancy popcorn.  My whole family had a great time in that store! They had 4 pennies.

Pennies, Candy and Popcorn!

And we went out to a little town called Bitely, since they have a penny machine!  There wasn't much else in that little town, other than the Up North Gift Company.  3 pennies there.

Indiana -
On our way home we stopped at two Travel Plazas in Portage, Indiana.  Both places had 4 pennies available and only one was a duplicate, so we got 7 pennies there.

Rest stop pennies.

Illinois - 
Rockome Gardens in Arcola, IL was a really neat place.  We didn't have much time to really get to look around, but the nice people let us in for free to just get the pennies.  They had one there, and the machine was an electric press (we didn't crank it).

Electric machine at the Amish stop?

We stayed next to and ate at 17th Street BBQ in Marion, IL... and they have their own penny machine!  The food was really good too!  Got 4 pennies there.

Mmm, BBQ pennies!

 Then we took a little side trip to Makanda, Il, but the little Boardwalk there was all closed up and we couldn't get the pennies.  BUT, my mom left a note and an envelope with quarters, pennies and postage under their door in hopes that someone would find it and send us pennies.  Just over a week later, we received an envelope with 4 pennies from Makanda!!!

We can SEE the penny machine, but can't get to it!

Missouri - 
We stopped at Boomland in Charleston, MO for drinks and 3 more pennies!

BOOM pennies!

 Unfortunately we got to Lambert's Cafe too early, they weren't opened yet and we couldn't wait around long enough, so we weren't able to get the pennies there this time.  Or eat their "throwed rolls."

Arkansas - 
Our last stop was at Brown's Country Store in Benton, AR for one more penny before we got home!

Arkansas penny!

It was a fun trip and I was glad to come home with so many new pennies to add to my collection!