Cheap Dates

There's a recurring article in the Dallas Morning News Friday "guide" that lists "cheap dates"--which defines cheap as "under $30."

I was thinking about some of the best cheap dates that were really good ones:

Here in Dallas, you can get into the Arboretum on Friday afternoons for a reduced fee (on some "off-season" dates it's actually free) and look around, and follow that up with a dinner at a restaurant called Ozona's West Texas Grille on upper Greenville. Sit outside and by a fireplace in the winter...even with tip you're outta there for under $25 and it's pretty good food.

In college, on weekends, the university I attended had free movies (which was really what had just been released on video or about a month after it came out on HBO). You could get a date, go see a movie and stroll over to an ice cream shop and then stroll around the campus. Very cool date. In fact, my wife and I had our first date at the free movie (a horrible movie called About Last Night).

Also, any sporting event or play or something like that in which someone gives you free tickets and you have to scramble to get child care arranged in like a three hour window. Those are usually great dates.

One last one that was my "default date idea" because it worked better than anything else I tried to schmooze the ladies with, was the "big box of questions." I'd call the girl's friend, find out what her favorite picnic-type food was, get a bottle of wine, head off to a park somewhere and break out the blanket and big box of questions which had about 100 slips of paper with various questions like "What's your favorite childhood memory?" or "What are traits of people you truly admire?" or "When did you laugh the hardest?" Things like that.

So...what else ya got for great cheap dates?