I reported a few weeks ago that wildfires were threatening Colorado's Royal Gorge Bridge & Park. According to a post a couple of days ago, the entire park was lost except for the world-famous bridge, one of the theaters, and the mini-train.

The park has let a contract to begin demolition of the ruined buildings and hopes to have things cleaned up enough to open the bridge for one-way traffic within a couple of months.

They have hopes to rebuild the park and say it could be open in as little as a year once demolition and clean-up have ended. We hope so. It's a fun place and was a favorite on our last two Colorado Rockies trips in 2007 and 2011. I'm not sure when our next trip to Colorado might take place, but am thinking around 2016. (You know, that's not that far away!)

Click to read the Facebook posting about Royal Gorge Park.

We returned right on schedule from our West Virginia mountains adventure to a parking lot filled with excited parents. The boys were pretty excited too. They would soon be off to a "quiet" lunch without 19 new and old buddies and would soon get to see their home, siblings, other parents, pets, and their own beds.

But I can also tell you, I imagine most of the boys (if not all) will also miss the daily adventures that would unfold each morning in West Virginia. They might  even miss cramming into a couple of vans not knowing where we're going to eat until we actually drove up into the parking lot or not knowing what activities might happen on any given day until they were announced the night before.

And I also imagine, and I hope, that most of these boys will be with us on another trip in the future. Some are already signed up and I know others will follow.

It was fast-paced week with a great group of campers. I would also like to acknowledge how wonderful,  kind, and patient my leaders were. Thanks to Howard Yarborough, Doug Williams, and Brent Roberts for giving up their valuable time to serve as staff. You guys were the best.

And you campers...you were great! Lots of compliments (after a slow start) and lots of good times. I miss you already.

Click to see photos from our great week in West Virginia.

We spent another full day enjoying ourselves on the West Virginia adventure. Our first activity was taking a tour of the Lost World Caverns. I think everyone was in awe as we walked down the path deep into the huge cavern. We had a two-hour guided tour that was excellent. Along the way we were able to complete the requirements for an "EarthCache," a type of geocache. We had hoped to do more geocaching on this trip but just ran out of time.

After our cavern tour the boys tried their hand at gemstone mining and in just a few minutes each had a bag of some pretty impressive rocks to bring home. And then they hit the gift shop and pretty much made the owners' day. We really hadn't had any opportunities to do any souvenir hunting on this trip so this was a good stop.

From Lost World Caverns we went back into Lewisburg for lunch and another one of our "earned" treats for receiving yet another sincere compliment and then we decided to go bowling once more for our afternoon activity. Today was the first day we had any rain that "could" have interrupted our activity plans but it really didn't get in the way. Bowling took us up to dinner. We decided to try a local pizza establishment called Giovanni's and weren't disappointed.

And finally, back to the hotel to pack and then have a final "junk food & swim party" hosted by Chapman Mann. Boys enjoyed swimming one last time and actually didn't pig out all that much on the candy and other snacks donated by Chapman and the other boys.

It has been an excellent week. The kids have been great and I hope i'll see all of them again on a future trip.

Click to see photos.

Notice something different about the boys in this picture? They were dressed up this morning for our two-hour tour of "the Bunker," a Cold War era top-secret hiding place for the entire US Congress. Our personal tour was excellent and boys had to be dressed to be on resort property. I'm pretty sure this was a first (dressing up) for MTA trips.

After lunch and some time to change clothes we got ready to do some hiking. But first we stopped at Dairy Queen for a treat. Special treats like this are saved for special occasions - basically they get a treat when a "stranger" gives the boys a sincere compliment on their behavior. At first I didn't think they were ever going to get one but just lately they've picked up several so today was their time to cash one in. I'm sure we'll cash in at least another treat or two. This is just a one-week trip so time is running out.

After our ice-cream treats, we headed out of town for a 30-minute drive to Beartown Mountain State Park. We hiked a boardwalk trail though a beautiful forest with large rock outcroppings on both sides. It was quite fascinating and the boys thought it was well worth the drive. After the hike the boys participated in another team-building activity. We divided the kids into three groups and explained the game. Basically each group had to have the boys on each end of the log switch places and then the next two closest to the ends switched places and so forth until the entire group had switched places. Check out the video of the final seconds on one of the group's successful conclusion.

After our hike we returned to the motel for some swimming and then had dinner at Bob Evans Restaurant. It was another perfect day.

Click to see more photos.

We had perfect weather for a busy day of activities.

We started with a bike ride on the Greenbrier River Trail. This is a "rails-to-trails" conversion giving us a scenic, traffic-free ride alongside the river. The terrain is virtually flat so the biking was easy.

One group and a set of leaders biked eight miles and the other group traveled twelve. The biking outfitters gave each of us a souvenir water bottle which was a nice added bonus.

Before packing up and heading back to the motel we tried another team-building activity. I'm happy to report that just about every boy knows everyone's name on this trip.

Click to see photos.

After the bike ride it was time for eating. Actually, it's always time for eating. We had lunch at the Subway within walking distance of our motel and then had "rest hour" in the motel rooms until swimming time. Dinner this evening was at When Pigs Fly Barbecue. It was excellent if you're a barbecue lover and most of these boys were. Of course, the portions were way bigger than any of us could handle.

Then from dinner it was bowling with the boys and leaders dividing up across four lanes. To spice up the fun, MTA offered $10 to the high scorer in the first game. Will Rasco, pictured here, was the happy winner. We upped the ante a bit for the second game with a $10 prize for the first place scorer, $5 for second place, $3 for third place, and $2 for fourth place. Dominic Arnel won the $10 first-prize money.

Oh yeah, we've declared Wednesday to be a sugar-free day! I doubt that will last long.

Click to see photos.

Today was another fun day which started with a great tube ride down the Greenbrier River. The Greenbrier Campground folks supplied the tubes, PFDs, and shuttle ride to our put-in a couple of miles upriver from their campground and we floated a few leisurely miles back. The river was mostly gentle currents with a few minor rapids for excitement. We did have a few people get knocked from a tube but needless to say, all were able to get back in. One boys did lose his tube when he went through one rapid and had to wait on the side of the bank for rescue by leader Brent Roberts and camper Sebi. Awesome Adam, as he came to be called remained calm and collected until Brent was able to get over to him to let him double up in Sebi's tube until they could reach Adam's original tube. In the end, it was a nice ride and everyone enjoyed it.

The campground had a basketball and sand volleyball court and many of the boys had an opportunity to play a little before lunch. THey also had a small playground that a few boys enjoyed.

Campers and leaders always seem to be hungry so lunch was next on the agenda. No two meals are ever eaten at the same time and today's lunch was another late one and definitely unique. We ate at Stuart''s Dawg House (sometimes called Smokehouse). Hog Dogs were the specialty at this Tiki-themed cafe in the wilderness overlooking the Greenbrier River. Hot dogs are the house specialty and since the restaurant only had one cook and waitress wrapped into one body, the leaders helped serve up some tasty hotdogs. We loved this restaurant with the 20 foot hot dog as  part of their sign.

We also spent a little time swimming today or just relaxing around the rooms. The kids are really working hard to get know everyone's name and that has been great.  Dinner was in the town of Lewisburg at a pizza place.. After dinner we did drive around the town of Lewisburg just to check it out as it was named the "Coolest Small City in America" for 2011. It is a nice little town but not much that would interest kids.


Click to see photos.

It was another long day today....they all will be this way and it's the way we like them. Right now everyone's asleep except for me. 

Click to see the photos from the trip starting with the most recently posted batch.

Our day started with a ride up a scenic two-lane road about 90 minutes to Cass, West Virginia. Along the way we saw lots of deer, a snapping turtle, and a fox. Or at least some of us saw all of those. Our resident bird experts Nick Browne and Doug Williams also pointed out several birds along the way.

We boarded the train at Cass and took the ride up to Whittaker station where the boys were able to get off and explore the train stop for about 45 minutes. The fireman for the train (actually a lady) invited boys to climb up into the cab of the 90 year-old-steam locomotive so she could explain her job and how the train worked.

There were great views of the mountains and the forests as the train went up and down the mountain. Back at the Cass Railroad station the boys shopped for souvenirs and then we ended with lunch at the Last Stop Diner at the station.

We returned to our base motel in Lewisburg and most boys went swimming. Dinner was at Ruby Tuesday's which is within walking distance of our motel. We had planned to go bowling tonight but found out the bowling alley closes early on Sunday so we'll try again later in the week.

We ended the evening with a couple of team-building games in a local park. The boys were able to solve the "problems" after a lot of trial and error. 

I'm happy to report that some boys know the names of all the boys on the trip and others are getting close.

Click to see our photos from the trip.

A short video of our train rounding the curve before reaching the Whittaker Station.

Well parents and friends.... we did indeed make it to West Virginia and all's well. It was a slower drive that we had hoped but the kids were calm and didn't seem to mind.

All the boys went swimming after we checked into the motel and then we had dinner at the Shoney's buffet next door.

The real activities begin tomorrow. We're ready.

Each evening I'll hopefully post a full set of photos and will link them here. What you'll see in the blog is just a sampling.





Opening days are the least interesting of the entire trip, but the kids are definitely pumped for the days ahead and didn't seem to mind the drive at all.

And finally after waiting what seemed like forever with a slow wi-fi connection, here's the full set of photos for today. Not much interesting to see, but the kids were having fun.

Click to see the photos.

Here's Mark with the first two boys to arrive. Sebastian and Nick were the early birds today. The other 18 weren't far behind.

Thanks so much to the parents, and boys, and my leaders Howard Yarborough, Brent Roberts, and Doug Williams for giving up a week of their summers to be leaders on this trip. 

This time tomorrow we'll be settled into our rooms in Lewisburg, West Virginia with a bunch of excited campers.  And for the next several days we'll be hiking, biking, tubing, geocaching, gemstone mining, taking a train ride, and  a whole lot more.




We hope you'll return to this page often to follow us so you can read about some of our happenings and see the photos. 

It's always a delight when a boy shares his birthday during one of our adventures. Here we were celebrating Charlie Hull's birthday in Munich, Germany in 2009. We were dining al fresco after a fairly long train ride from Prague. Charlie wasn't the only one celebrating a birthday on that trip - we had two others: Fletcher Armstrong and Ian Van Wye. There are some boys who don't want to be away from home on their birthdays and we can understand that. But we love it when a traveler knows he can spread out his birthday and celebrate twice - once during the trip and again when he gets back home.

On this summer's Europe trip we'll have two young men celebrating their big days. We know Tomo Haske will celebrate his in Bruges, Belgium on the second day of the trip. But we have no clue where we'll be celebrating Alex McIntyre's special day on July 19 since the kids will be choosing where we visit as we travel.

This summer's Europe by Eurail adventure is all set to go. But it's not too early to sign up for the next trip across the Atlantic in 2015. In fact, nearly ten boys have already added their name to the "no application, no deposit, no commitment, save-me-a-spot-maybe" list. Click to learn more or to add your son's name to the list.