Take a Cruise for Credit

by Jamie Rhein on

Okay, now we’re talking. For anyone needing recertification credits to keep a teaching license, here’s an option other than heading to a traditional classroom, or holing up at home squirreling away time with an on-line class. There are cruises designed for teachers and their families. If you set sail with Teacher Educational Cruises you’ll end up with 12 credit hours by the end. Only two days of the cruise is spent on coursework, the rest is spent having fun–not that taking courses isn’t fun, but still, keeping a teaching license current while sailing the seas seems like a great excuse for taking a cruise. “Honey, I have to cruise to Greece, I need the credit hours.”

The cruise through Italy, Egypt and Greece with the Italian Costa cruise line is next summer. Although the itinerary is in place, there isn’t information about what will be studied for the coursework. Hopefully, it’s connected to the travel experience. For people interested in expanding their trip, there are some suggestions.

There’s also a 5-night Caribbean cruise this Novemember. This one leaves from Galveston, Texas and may be connected to homeschoolers, another specialty Teacher Education Cruises offers. Here’s a link to onboard activities to see just what everyone else might be doing while the teacher in the family is studying. The Web site also mentions that people who are not teachers are welcome to join. Since keeping up certification is an on-going process with teachers, trips like what this company offers are a great idea.

Want more information on cruises?

Bat Fest 2007 and Two More Bat Places

by Jamie Rhein on

There are a places where bats in their natural habitat take center stage adding to the tourist draw of a place. I’ve been to Carlsbad Caverns in New Mexico where bats fly out every evening from April to October (or thereabouts) and to the Bat Pagoda in Soc Trang in the Mekong Delta region of Vietnam. This is where bats bigger than a dinner plate hang in trees everywhere you look.

I found out this past Wednesday when I was at the Columbus Zoo for the last Wednesday night kid’s program of the summer, (It makes me sad to write that) that the Bat Fest is going on next weekend, September 1-2, in Austin, Texas. Mark Tillack, otherwise known as Musical Mark, and one of the performers for the program, has come up with a series of bat songs geared for children. This has put him on a quest to find out more about all things bats. The Bat Fest caught his attention. When he mentioned it to me as we were talking after his show, it caught my attention. Here’s what I found out.

The Bat Fest is a large arts and crafts show with bat events. For example, if you come dressed as a bat you can win a prize–a serious prize. The best bat costume can fetch $200. The Batman Stage features different musicians (maybe a possible stop for Ember?) and there are rides, food and educational displays besides quality craft and art items to buy. From the photos, it looks like some are bat related and some are just nifty.

Plan for Labor Day: Things to Do

by Jamie Rhein on

“Are you going anywhere for Labor Day?” our friends asked us last night as we sat in our living room after an evening at the movies seeing The Bourne Ultimatum. They were heading out on an extended family camping trip.

“Nope, we’ve been gone so much we thought we’d stay here,” we said. This summer we’ve been from the East Coast (Massachusetts, New York, Washington, D.C.) to the West Coast (Washington State and on over to Montana) to the Midwest (Owensboro, Kentucky) and to Cleveland two times, that Labor Day weekend needs to be spent catching up on the things we haven’t taken care around the house that we promised to do before the end of summer. I call this “shoveling out.”

But, since Labor Day does offer that present of a Monday off, here are some suggestions of Labor Day jaunts and possibilities that I came across. Beaches, parks, museums, restaurants etc. are on the lists.

  • For romantic getaway suggestions check out “Top 10 Things to Do Before Labor Day.”
  • For where to go for Labor Day on a budget, here’s “Top 6 Places to Spend Labor Day on the East Coast on a Budget.”
  • If you live near Seattle, here’s a huge list of things to do in an article from The Seattle Times.
  • And here’s Labor Day Weekend 2007 on About: Travel with Kids. This is a terrific roundup of things to do across the United States. There are links upon links upon links.

Doesn’t summer end though on September 21? Maybe we can slip in at least a day trip for Labor Day. There’s that rodeo going on at Smoke Rise Ranch in Hocking Hills, Ohio. (The photo is of the Working Man sculpture outside the Seattle Art Museum. The fence is gone now since the construction is completed.)

More Road Trip Games

by Jamie Rhein on

Martha recently wrote in a post about road trip games inspired by her 5 day trip across the Canadian praries.

Here is a game that we play on trips. This is a version of the alphabet game. In this version players search billboards and road signs for letters of the alphabet starting with the letter A. A sign can only be used once. Once you see the letter you need, you call out what it is and the sign where you saw it. You have to go in alphabetical order. Once a sign is used you move onto the another letter on another sign. Whoever gets to Z first wins.

And here are three road trip games you can buy. Kevin Joy, a writer for the Columbus Dispatch pulled together suggestions in an article I’ve culled from. These particular three appeal to me because they don’t require technology to play.

Conversations to Go—If you want to think of things to talk about, here’s a solution. This game doesn’t seem to have winners or losers. According to the description there are cards with questions that center on travel. If you’re creative, why not think up your own questions? On the otherhand, pulling questions from a box have a certain random appeal tha breaks down trip monotony.

Miles of Smiles: Travel Games & Quizzes to Go. This one is published by American Girl so the cover looks “girlie”. Hopefully, the games inside would interest boys as well. I like these game books because they provide many options from which to choose. When stuck in a car for the next 50 miles until there’s a highway exit, it’s great to have some control over something.

Are We There Yet? – This one looks like it might be my favorite of the bunch. It’s a card game, scavenger hunt where players are delt five cards with items on them. Whoever finds their items first wins. To speed things up (like in Wyoming it could take hours to see something new) you can put a time limit or within a mile limit on this one.

Plugged In or Tuned Out in Amish Country

by Jamie Rhein on

Once, when I was about ten years old, my grandparents came to visit my family in State College, Pennsylvania where we lived. Afterwards, they brought my brother and me back to their house in Dayton, Kentucky right across the river from Cincinnati. They were excited to take us on a side trip through Amish country on the way.

Since the oldest settlement of Amish in the United States is in Lancaster, Pennsylvania, a drive through there guarantees coming across horse drawn buggies, white farmhouses with laundry flapping on clotheslines, and fruit and vegetable stands that also sell homemade pies and jams. I was happy to drive through Amish country, but after awhile was more interested in reading my book than keeping my eye for another buggy much to my grandmother’s displeasure.

Now that I’m traveling with my own 14 year-old, I can somewhat relate to how my grandmother felt.

This My Turn Essay by Lisa Segleman in this week’s Newsweek magazine addresses the road trip with kids issue, something that I’ve also written about in earlier posts. In Segelman’s account, everyone in her family was plugged into their own electronic devices, thus did very little to interact with each other while they traveled from New Jersey to Florida. I understood her feelings about not having anyone to interact with since everyone was busy interacting with their gadgets, but also wondered why no one said, “Unplug.”

On the other hand, perhaps part of the pleasure of a road trip is the coziness of being in a vehicle with family members without arguements. Still, whenever we go on trips with my daughter, we do tell her to take off the earphones from time to time to visit with us. And sometimes, she hands me her headphones so I can listen to her favorite songs. The only time I do this is on a road trip and I always feel great when I’m plugged in.

Colin Thomas snapped this picture of Bethany and posted it on Flickr. His comment said, she said, “You’re so annoying.” Yep, sounds about right. I don’t think Bethany is an adolescent though, but the sentiments are the same.