Frontier Travel Camp will be attending the Resources for Children With Special Needs Camp Fair this Saturday, the 29th of January in New York City.

The location:

Church of St. Paul the Apostle
Columbus Avenue & West 60th Street, Manhattan

Time:  11a-3p.

Please surf to their website for more details:  http://resourcesnyc.org/events/special-camp-fair

Frontier Travel Camp cruised aboard the Carnival Freedom to Mexico, Costa Rica and Panama.  We had a wonderful trip.  We all boogied at the disco nighty until the wee hours of the morning.  We ate fantastic food, and really had a great bonding experience.

We had many highlights while in port.  We traveled to a sustainable living resort on the coast of Costa Rica.  We learned about how a very fortunate few can live off of the land in this very picturesque setting.  While in Panama we got to see several HUGE ships pass through the Panama Canal.  This was the most memorable Mid-Winter Cruise ever.

This story is from around 2000 or 2001.  We were traveling along the west coast of the United States.  One of our stops was Yosemite National Park.  This park is known for having a very large number of black bear’s who have made Yosemite Home.  Anyone, upon entering the park, will be asked to please make sure that there is no food left in a van.  You MUST clear out the van when you park in the lot or a bear will break into the van.  Since we were only camping there at Curry Village for one night, we chose to leave most of our suitcases in the vans but be sure that all food was removed.  We woke the next morning to a furry surprise.

The next morning I walked to the van in the parking lot to charge my cellular phone.  Upon arrival I see some interesting black marks on the driver’s side of the car.  I get closer I see that the marks are actually made by the paws of a black bear.  What began to really concerned me the fact that the marks were way up close to the top of the van.  I thought BIG!

I walked around the other side of the van to see the whole side had been laden with those mud paw prints all along that side of the van.  I looked like one or more bears were just trying the push the 15-passenger over completely during the night.  When I got to the front passenger window you couldn’t help to notice that not only was there black bear hair all around the empty window frame of the car, there was mud on my seats and the dashboard and my CD player was crushed and left with dirt and bear hair all over it.  Not to mention glass everywhere.  When I was sure that the bear had left, I went inside to inspect the damage.

What I found were slashed row seats with actually claw marks in the Styrofoam that were all over the place.  Finally, under the center row, was Daedra’s suitcase.  The suitcase was torn open as was all of Daedra’s saved-up goodies.  Chocolate bars, huge bags of potato chips, Frito’s, and other kinds of candies.  She must have been hoarding them for the last few days. The van had to be returned.  Thankfully, I had purchased all of the additional insurance for the van rental and was able to embarrassingly exchange the van.

How did Daedra get all of that candy if she wasn’t carrying much money?

I will always listen to park rangers ever since that day.  You should as well.

Frontier Travel Camp is always looking to improve the health of its travelers.  We provide healthy meal choices and are constantly discussing with our group the importance of being active, eating well, and making the right choices.  We’re very committed to setting a positive example and showing that regular physical activity and a healthy diet can lay the foundation for a happier, more productive, and overall improved existence.

It is imperative that all of us realize the importance of communication.  We must be able to express our feelings, be heard, and have the ability to listen to others.  For us, it would be impossible to effectively have success with all of the core values listed here without the ability and desire to communicate effectively.  We facilitate communication during all facets of our trips, encourage the verbal expression of feelings whether positive or negative, in all situations.  We want everyone to feel deep-down that they matter, that they are respected individuals who are independent and able to succeed in any situation.  Without feeling like respected, empowered individuals, effectively communicating in all settings will continue to be a challenge.

2.    After nearly 20 years of traveling with special needs “Individuals” I’ve learned that none of our travelers share any of the same traits exactly the same as their peers.  Sure, this is true with all humans.  But, our special needs travelers really have numerous amazing traits and abilities that sets them apart from everyone else in the world.  For one it can be as simple as a necessity to where pink shoelaces on all shoes no matter what.  For another, it may be the need to have yogurt at lunch every day.  And for another it is the ability to figure-out the day of the week you were born if provided with a birth-date.  For every individual we have on our trip we have a whole set of unique traits that make that person unique.

We believe in celebrating what makes us individuals.  We want our traveler to feel proud of their pink shoelaces and we want everyone to know how wonderful those laces look.  For our traveler who can tell you the day of the week you were born, we want everyone to know how fantastic it is to be able to do that so quickly.  Whatever your thing is, it is what makes you YOU.  We guarantee that we’ll treat everyone with the respect needed so that they feel comfortable enough to celebrate their own individuality and to be proud of it.  So, we’ll continue to do whatever we can to make sure all of our travelers are supported in whatever it is that sets them apart.

1.    Respect.  The basic principle and value of respect is our most important core value.  Whether related to our special needs populations or in our own individual lives we have a responsibility to treat one another and ourselves with a high level of respect.  With our travelers, this value is even more paramount.  We believe that respect is recognized in many ways.  We all have our own definitions of what respect means and many of us are able to express those feelings. For some, perhaps our clientele, this verbal expression and forthright understanding of this value is difficult, if not impossible to express.  Therefore, we believe that we must set forth true and constant example of respect every minute of every day.  If we cannot set this example, then we cannot possibly expect our travelers to exercise the same values towards themselves and others.

This year, 2010, part of our summer trip was a 2-week cruise from San Francisco to Alaska and back.  It was a wonderful cruise.  We saw so much and had unforgettable experiences.  Sometimes, it is the little moments that are so much fun and so rewarding.

For one of the last days of our cruise, we reserved the whole disco, karaoke machine and a DJ.  We gave everyone the opportunity to participate in our talent show.  We had all kinds of presentations.  There was a lot of karaoke.  Alan did the Beatles, Laura did Christina Aguilera, there was rap and country.  That was really awesome.

The really fun part started when they all lined-up to make fun of me.  Yep, the Director of the program.  The guy taking everyone on the trip.

I guess it was appropriate given that I’m usually the guy joking and teasing while on the trips.  I’ve dished it out over the years that is for sure.  This moment, and there have been others, I felt really thankful.  Howard was imitating my direction-giving voice, David the way I walk, Aaron how I talk into my walkie-talkie.  It is hard for me to explain the roaring laughter that the whole group of 30+ people had at my expense.  It was wonderful.

It was wonderful mostly because everyone felt comfortable enough with their friendship with me to make fun of me so freely.  I guess that is one of the more rewarding parts of our summer journeys.  We all become so close because we’re spending all of our time together everyday for a month.  I suppose that if they didn’t like me and everyone else, they wouldn’t feel comfortable enough to go up in front of the group and go on and on about making fun of me.  I never felt so good about being the center of attention and being the subject of the roast.

Many of our travelers have been joining us year-after-year for more than a decade.  Maybe I have to keep providing more and more reasons for them to laugh at me and WITH each other.

Frontier Travel Camp is still going strong after 14 years simply because of how much we care about our travelers and staff. I’ve decided that it was time to share with everyone, in written form, the core values that have become the backbone of our family. These values only touch upon how we feel that our travelers and staff should be treated, how they should represent themselves, and the commitment that we have to the program as a whole. We hope that you’ll consider these as important in your life, particularly if you are caretakers and examples for others.