The Wild West is often romanticized for its picturesque desert landscapes, bold frontiersmen, and bar fights that start whenever piano music abruptly stops playing. Strike out for the western territories with today's Groupon: for $29, you get admission and train rides for a family of four at Wild West City in Stanhope (up to a $66 value).

A simulation of a frontier town, Wild West City, in its 53rd year of existence, entertains cadres of visitors with live-action shows, train rides, and costumed characters. Amble down Main Street and browse the shops before shooting the breeze with historic figures such as Jesse James or Wild Bill Hickok's spittoon. In the buildings located along Main Street, visitors learn about 19th-century farming, period dressmaking, and blacksmithing. Western wanderers can marvel at 22 different live-action shows, or saunter through the barnyard zoo as goats, ponies, and pigs prance about. History buffs mimic ’49ers while panning for gold, as they comb through sluice in search of the mother lode in Egan's Mine #1.

Each member of the clan of four gets a pass to climb aboard the miniature train, which chugs along a 3/4-mile track past Dry Gulch, Arapahoe Territory, Dan Tucker's camp, and Vulture Valley. Pack a picnic to squelch hunger or swing by the Golden Nugget Saloon to practice bursting dramatically through swinging doors, shouting, "Come quick! There's a dance-off at high noon."