If you've read the last MTA newsletter or kept  up with us via Facebook and/or other outlets, you know that we had a phenomenal response to the 2018 European adventure planned for next June.

Our other trip will be a seven-day trip to the Virginia Highlands in July. Usually the short trips don't start to build a roster until mid-fall once everyone is back in school a few weeks. So it is exciting to get our first four boys on the roster for the 2018 Virginia Highlands trip. Click this link to learn more about this full-filled week that's close to home.

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.

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 has been a busy few weeks as the pieces start falling into place for our two upcoming summer trips. 

It's been over a decade since we last visited West Virginia and I had no clue if I would find enough boys to make this trip certain. All of our recent trips have been to relatively far-away places so didn't know if kids would want to do some exploring closer to home. Happy to report we have a packed trip with 20 boys and five adults all raring to go. I've been making reservations for some really great activities like the Cass Scenic Railroad, Lost World Caverns, a bike ride on the Greenbrier River Trail, and more. I'm especially excited about getting a chance to tour "the Bunker" at The Greenbrier Resort. This was a Cold War era "secret" for over 30 years until it was exposed by a reporter and had to be declassified. This bunker was built to house hundreds of top-level government employees like the president and congress in case of war. 

And even though our Europe trip is mostly a "plan it as we travel" experience with boys deciding where to go, what to see, how long to stay...I have made reservations for our first two nights hotel stay in Bruges, Belgium and our last three nights hotel stay in Munich, Germany. The rest of the trip is completely up to the boys. Bruges is about a 75 minutes train ride from Brussels and is a UNESCO World Heritage Cultural City and I'm really looking forward to starting our trip there.

Stay tuned to this blog this summer for photos and reports about both trips.