This was our last day of activities. And already I’m starting to miss this commotion of non-stop activity, noise, and fun. It has been a wild week…and a good one. We’ve had perfect weather with mostly sunny days and relatively mild summer temperatures. The only rain we’ve had of this writing was about ten minutes worth during the drive into Waynesboro on the first day and a sprinkle of a couple of minutes this evening as we were walking to dinner.

Our main activity today was a 17-mile bike trip on the Virginia Creeper Trail. Several riders actually added another four miles or so to their total because they decided to backtrack and ride another section over again just because they were a speedy group. The ride went through mostly forested countryside as we crossed 32 trestles. The Virginia Creeper is a “rails-to-trails” conversion where unused railroad beds are deeded over as biker, hiker, and equestrian trails. Users get miles of relatively flat (or in our case downhill) trails without the worry of encountering automobile traffic. It makes for a relaxing and enjoyable ride. Our route took us from White Top to Damascus which is about half the total trail.

After lunch we had one of our treats for “compliments” at Dairy Queen and returned to the hotel after a drive through Abingdon to check it out. Boys got to swim before dinner and after our dinner we conluded the evening with our Chapman Mann Junk-Food Party. No worries parents – the boys didn’t eat as much as you might have expected.

Tomorrow, we’re home. Did I say I will miss this group of boys?

Click to see the latest photos.

Thursday was another all-day set of adventures for this group of non-stop boys. After leaving our Waynesboro hotel we headed an hour closer to home for our first stop – Natural Bridge Park. After a short hike we arrived at the bridge, which is truly a natural wonder. It’s hard to show it in pictures, but they will at least give you an idea of what we saw. From the bridge we hiked another few hundred yards to a “Monacan Indian Village” which was a recreation of an area tribe that had lived in this region. The interpreters made it interesting and we enjoyed learning a bit of history. We dined in the park’s Summer House café by the river, which offered sandwiches (hamburgers, chicken, vegetarian, etc.), before driving a couple of miles to the Natural Bridge Caverns. Here the boys had a guided tour down into the depths of Eastern America’s deepest cavern. It wasn’t a particularly large cavern, but fun just the same. Boys who have never been in a cavern were particularly impressed.

Next up was our trip to Virginia Safari Park, a large drive-through and walk-through live animal exhibit. We loved it. Lots of animals would come right up to our van windows looking for a free handout. The camels were especially funny as they would attempt to grab the feed bucket right out your hands. This happens so frequently that a park sign warns of this occurrence and actually says, “it’s okay” if they do steel your bucket.

The walk through part of the park was just as fun and boys especially enjoyed feeding the birds.

After our Thursday activities we headed to our Abingdon hotel and walked to dinner at a pizza place for a late-evening dinner.

It was another good day. We’ve had nothing but perfect weather so far on this trip. The only rain we had was driving through a fifteen-minute storm before we reached our first hotel.


Right: Peter feeding a bird with a feeding stick.

Andy Lammers, a middle school teacher at Carolina Day School (Asheville), writes about his experience as a leader on our Virginia trip. This was too good not to share.

What a lucky life I lead. Former colleague and legendary Carolina Day School and now Christ Church Episcopal School teacher Mark Levin asked me to come along on a week-long road trip with twenty-three 11 to 13 year old boys. Maybe it’s not your idea of a grand time, but I jumped at the chance. So here I am, in Virginia’s Shenandoah Valley on an adventure. Making the deal even sweeter, my son Jackson is along for the ride. Boy time!

I didn’t think this would be a big learning experience, just spending the week with wild, goofball boys and running amok outside, but quickly I realized that if I paid attention, I could be reminded of some really cool stuff about boys.

Yesterday I was reminded that boys still say wow.

Out on a hike in Shenandoah National Park we came across millipedes creeping across damp ground and the boys said wow. They said quiet wows when we hiked up to the rocks and looked down to see vultures soaring below us.

The boys winced with disgust and said wow when I held up the tick I found climbing on my calf. They uttered curious wows as they peppered Appalachian Trail through-hikers with questions. They said wow when we nibbled wild blueberries growing along the trail.

The boys murmured puzzled wows as we inspected iron bars that had been pounded into stone, creating some sort of support for a long-gone bridge. They screamed WOW! when we saw a black bear rooting for grubs along the roadside.

At every stop they took in the world around them, faces lit with curiosity.

I think we forget how curious and engaged boys can be. We see them glued to the Xbox or some device and wonder if they’ve lost something, if boys these days have changed. We see them sluggish, ambivalent at best about their school work and more than a little resistant to picking up a book. We worry and wonder if they are going to be OK.

But I think the boys are already alright. Everybody take a deep breath. The boys still say wow; I’ve heard them.

Maybe it’s up to us to find a few more chances for them to let their wows out.

Click to check out recent photos from our adventures.

There’s no such thing as a non-busy day on our adventures. We started Wednesday with a trip to the Frontier Culture Museum in nearby Staunton, Virginia. But before we left I must report that the sales manager of our hotel came out to say that we’ve been the best youth group they’ve ever had. Of course that’s music to my ears and was a cause for celebration. The kids have been great, but that’s not to mean they don’t have their moments of complete bedlam, like tonight at dinner. But that’s another story.

We spent nearly four hours at the Frontier Culture Museum, about two hours more than we had planned. Some boys wanted to stay longer but lunch was calling. This is a living history center with costumed interpreters telling us how Virginia and other parts of the US came to be settled.

We visited authentic restored houses of an English family and a German family and learned about life in those countries before the families came to the United States. The German interpreter was actually a transplanted Austrian and he enjoyed a few brief moments speaking German to our two German boys, Henri and Samuel. Then we learned about the Native Americans and their lives as part of this wilderness of the Shenandoah Mountains. The boys got to play a Native American game, which they enjoyed a lot.

Next came a couple of 1800’s farmsteads and the boys learned about life in the early settlements in the United States. They got to help carve wooden handles for use in axes, etc. and we finished with a visit to another 1800’s farm where they learned about life in these colonies and states. The boys also got to learn about old home remedies in a little play-acting routine.

We visited the gift shop (of course) after our guided tour and had lunch in Staunton. After lunch we decided we needed an hour of chill time, which included a few minutes for swimming.


Our late afternoon was bowling and we had a blast. We ended up throwing in some real “dough” as a little extra incentive. 

We ended our evening with a couple of team-building games to help settle the boys down after a rather rambunctious dinner at Golden Corral which included an all-you-can-eat buffet. I think things would have been fine except this all-you-can-eat deal included desserts and that was a bit too much.

We wind down our Waynesboro portion of the trip tomorrow morning as we head down to Abingdon for the last bit of fun….and do we ever have a lot planned!

At left, bringing home the bacon.

Tubing a river, eating ice cream, and watching a ballgame. What could be better?

We had another busy, fulfilling, and fun day on Tuesday. What else could we expect?

We drove up to Bentonville to go tubing on the Shenandoah River through the Shenandoah River State Park. It was a relaxing three-mile ride with just a few ripples. Boys saw herons, snakes, turtles, etc. The guys enjoyed the tube float and had opportunities to swim here and there along the way.

Click to see the latest photos.

We returned to our hotel in late afternoon, but not before stopping for an ice cream treat as one of their compliment prizes.  We had just enough late-afternoon time for either a little swimming or a little room chillin’ before heading out to see a baseball game. We watched the Waynesboro Generals take on rival Front Royal Cardinals. This is a NCAA sanctioned wood bat league of college players hoping to make it to professional ball. It was a true slice of Americana and nothing like being up close and personal. Some of our boys came away with baseballs, autographs, and Ian even won a door prize. And if that’s not all, I got to be interviewed in front of the “crowd” about what we were doing up in Waynesboro. We got several thank-yous from the baseball officials and locals for coming to the game and supporting the home team. And oh yeah, the Generals won!

It was our day to spend in Shenandoah National Park today and we had a great time. We picked up food for a trail lunch so that we wouldn't have to worry about rushing to finish up our hiking to get to lunch. It was a good thing because our hike took longer than we were expecting. But this is par for the course. We're not in a race and today was a good example.

We entered the park and and found our trailhead. Everyone packed their lunches and gathered up for a quick lesson in trail etiquette. As it ended up, we had the trail virtually to ourselves. We hiked approximately four miles roundtrip including a small section of the Appalachian Trail. During lunch a National Park Service ranger came through our lunch site and we got a private fifteen minute naturalist program on "leave no trace" hiking. The ranger was a friendly guy and I think he sized us up as a group that believed in what he was preaching. We left our lunch location spotless.

We hiked across Calvary Rocks to Chimney Rock. There were many impressive views and some boys saw an impressive lizard and some saw a small snake.

After our hike we drove a few more miles on Skyland Drive in the Park to a park store for a treat...one of the paybacks for such a great day of compliments yesterday. Most of the boys had an ice cream cone while some chose a different treat. 

But the real treat came a few minutes later as we were heading home through the park. We were treated to two different bear sightings approximately ten minutes and a couple of miles apart. The second one was amazing. The juvenile bear was foraging for food in the woods just 100 feet or so from the car. All the boys saw both the bears and this second bear was going no place soon and we were able to observe for three minutes or so before we decided better not hold up traffic too long. Some boys also saw a deer, a turkey, and other assorted creatures.

It was a great day in Shenandoah. 

We returned to the hotel for swimming and resting and then had a nice dinner of pizza at a local establishment.

Here's video footage of the second bear of the day.

And don't forget to check out all our photos from Monday.

Relax parents...we made it. As anticipated a six hour drive evolved into nearly nine...and we're not sure where all that went. Took one wrong turn in Asheville (that was five minutes out of the way), took a restroom break at the Tennessee Welcome Center which might have been 30 minutes. had lunch in Johnson City, TN...that counted for another 45 minutes, stopped for a snack and bathroom break somewhere in Virginia...another 25 minutes...oh well - you get the picture. But we're here safe and sound and the boys are in great spirits. Well, a few are not happy about USA's tie in the World Cup.

After checking into the motel we immediately let boys go swimming and that was a great way to get some physical activity in after a long day of driving. And they were noisy! Very noisy. Part of that was the acoustics of the indoor pool and of course the other part was all this energy. After swimming we walked over the Cracker Barrel for a late dinner.

We had an important milestone today...six genuine compliments from independent observers! That is a record. I told boys that they have to "earn" desserts and special treats and they earn those by having complete strangers come up to us and tell us how well behaved they were. On some trips this never happens. Several years ago in Colorado the closest the boys got to a compliment was an elderly couple coming up to us after a meal and said, "You know, for a big group they weren't all that bad." Well, that didn't earn them a treat.

But today, day one, the boys received SIX compliments. SIX!! That is a new MTA record and I doubt will ever be matched. It might be impossible to squeeze in that many treats in one trip but we'll try. And of course, they could get more compliments tomorrow. We would love it.

It's very late now and I'm assuming all the boys are fast asleep. I'm getting ready to head that way. I can't promise a blog post every night but depending on my energy level and what time we get back to the motel...I'll try. And I'll post as many photos as I can each evening as well. For whatever the wi-fi connection signal here is great but the upload speed is slow...so what few photos I took today are making their way oh so slowly to the flickr site. Make sure you check those out and keep checking because the photos I'm posting now might not all be up there for an hour or two which means...while I'm sleeping I hope.

That website is: www.flickr.com/photos/mindstretch. You can see the photo stream or click on albums to see them by trip days.

Do note that just because I don't have a photo of your son in today's set doesn't mean he's not having a good time. It's just not always easy to get every boy during a day. But I'll try and you can be sure we still have all 23. 

Stay tuned for more news and photos. Tomorrow we're spending the day in Shenandoah National Park.

I love this graphic and used it last year to say, "We'll soon be off on the first of our adventures." A year later we're about to leave on our next round of stories in the making. Our week in the Virginia Mountains begins this Sunday and our two weeks in New England starts on July 6. 

Boys are going to be enjoying activities that many of them have never experienced before…and even familiar activities in new and amazing locations make for incredible stories that will get told over and over again.

Check this blog throughout our trips and be a part of the adventure. I'll post a short overview of the day's events and a lot of photos. It's not quite the same as being with us, but one of these days maybe you will.

Every summer parents (and boys) ask about bringing electronics on our trips. It would be great to leave all of that behind but they and parents seem more comfortable knowing the kids are just a phone call away. We let them bring this stuff but place strict rules on when it can be used. Just the same, wouldn't it be nice.

I came upon this article in a blog I subscribe to for camp directors. Thought you might enjoy it.

Mark


Standing Out
Dr. Chris Thurber writing for Camp Business magazine

My 9-year-old son, Sava, took a field trip to the State House in Concord, New Hampshire, with his class on Monday. Like any good parent, I asked him what he learned. “I’m the only kid without a smartphone” was his reply. Interesting civics lesson.

Sava went on to describe the one-hour bus ride from Exeter to the state capital. “Everyone pulled out their smartphones and started playing games. All I had was the iPod Shuffle that Grandma gave me.” (What a deprived existence he leads, right? Just a lowly music player. I should have given him my old Sony Walkman and a few sweet mix tapes from high school.)“Wow,” I replied jokingly, “You’re a complete dork. A total loser.” Sava smiled and then furrowed his brow. “You don’t get it, dad. It’s not about being cool. It’s about being included.” Then it was my turn to furrow my brow.

I know I make capricious decisions as a parent but I had believed my resistance to purchasing a smartphone for my 9-year-old (a smartphone for my 9-year-old!) was thoughtful. If you don’t believe that 9-year-olds are better off without smartphones, I can’t convince you in a brief essay. But I will concede that the social consequences of standing out can be emotionally challenging for children of any age. Maybe I hadn’t completely thought through my choice.

On second thought, maybe I’d rather have my child stand out for the right reasons. Like any parent, I’m happy to see him finish strongly in an athletic event, perform skillfully in a musical performance or simply behave kindly when we have company. Standing out in one moment can win you idiosyncrasy points with your peers that help you fit in the next moment.

Unwilling to cave and promise a new smartphone, yet vexed by his report, I asked: “What was it like to be the only kid without a smartphone on the bus ride to and from Concord?” “Well,” he said, “I listened to some music on my iPod. Then I watched Benji play a game called Plumber Crack.”

“How does that game work?” I asked, with my trademark squint. Sava went on to describe how this game (available on both iPhone and Android platforms) depicts your choice of a burly male rear end (with the pants pulled down just enough to reveal the proverbial “quarter slot” or top inch or two of the gluteus maximus cleft) or a curvaceous female bum. Players then flick the screen to toss ice cubes into the, um, avitar’s crack. Nice. Kind of like Paper Toss on spring break in Fort Lauderdale. Or something.

I’ll leave a caustic social commentary to game bloggers and customer reviews. Let me just wax philosophical on some educational questions, from a parent’s viewpoint. Does it make sense that the bookends of a school-sponsored field trip to learn about state history and governance involves unfettered access to video games? Was there a missed opportunity to teach two more hours of history to these fourth-graders?

Forget teaching for a minute. What would have happened if electronics had been forbidden and the kids had been forced to interact with one another? What if Governor Maggie Hassan had asked Benji (not the boy’s real name, of course): How did you spend the bus ride to Concord? Imagine how proud his parents—not to mention the two fourth-grade teachers—would have been to have Benji reply, “I’ve been tossing ice cubes into a woman’s butt crack. But don’t worry, it was just a game.” Classy.

The older I get, the older I sound. And that’s a good thing.

“Sava,” I said, “That game sounds funny but kinda inappropriate.” His retort: “It’s not that inappropriate, Tata. In fact, Benji said his mom won’t let him make the in-app purchase to buy the really skanky clothes for the girl plumber.” Oh. Good. I’m glad she’s only dressed in skin-tight jeans and a halter top in the game’s free version. Just imagine the paid version possibilities. Nothing like paying more to get less. (By the way, the latest version of the game also includes Santa Clause, bending under a Christmas tree, with the invitation “Throw Stuff In His Butt!” It’s hard to imagine a more radical departure from the religious meaning of Christmas. I’m no theologian; just thought I’d put that out there.)

“I think you just made my point for me, buddy. I know it was uncomfortable, but I’m glad you didn’t feel like you belonged on that bus ride. As long as I Mama and I have some say in the matter, you won’t belong to the Plumber Crack crowd.” He rolled his eyes again, but I think he caught my meaning.

No parent can protect his or her child completely from bizarre, sexist or violent media. But every parent is capable of having a series of thoughtful, balanced conversations about media; every parent is capable of influencing their child’s media consumption.

No, I haven’t lost my sense of humor or youthful exuberance, but I figure that if my kid stands out, I want it to be for reasons that make me proud. No one said childhood was easy. Parenting is even tougher.

Dr. Christopher Thurber serves on the faculty of Phillips Exeter Academy, a coeducational boarding high school. He is the father of two boys and author of the best-selling Summer Camp Handbook.

Here's an interesting read by Damon Linker of TheWeek.com that seems appropriate as many kids head off to camps and are asked to leave their electronics behind.

"In the test-obsessed, grade-gripped hothouses of meritocratic striving that are America's suburban public schools, some kids are thriving. They are the ones we (revealingly) call the "overachievers" — students who, with curricular, cultural, and parental support and encouragement, study hard after school, cramming their waking hours with homework, music lessons, sports, special projects, volunteering, and even the occasional fastidiously scheduled "play date" with a suitably achievement-oriented peer.

And then there are the children left behind."

Read the complete article here.