MindStretch Travel Adventures

06/22/2026

Our trip has wrapped up. 2026 is in the books. Here's photos from our last day.

We wrapped up our final day by gemstone mining at Emerald Village Gemstone Mine near Spruce Pine. Emerald Village is the home to several real mines and is the go-to mining experience for MTA boys. They enjoyed sharing their finds with each other and figuring up how much money their catch could get t...

06/20/2026

Photos from day six. We'll be wrapping this trip up today.

Day Six was our last full day of activities. We started with a trip to Grandfather Mountain where a docent guided us on a tour of the Animal Habitats area. Then we drove up even higher on the mountain to the parking area for the Swinging Bridge. It wea so windy, the park had closed the bridge before...

06/19/2026

And day five is in the books. Our own Weston caught the running hotdog to win himself a hotdog at the Boone Bigfoots vs Forest City Owls game. Check out today's photos.

Another fun day. We had an extra hour of sleep-in time this morning. I think everyone enjoyed that. After breakfast, we did something new. Don & Rae hosted the boys for 90 minutes of game playing in the hotel's conference room. They were loving it. Most of the games were new to the boys. Then of...

06/18/2026

Photos from yesterdays adventures.

Not all that many photos today, but still a day filled with fun. We started out with a tube float on the New River, an ironic name for what is said to be one of the oldest rivers in the world. On this day, I'm thinking that river is currently the shallowest river in the world. We did a lot of bottom...

06/17/2026

Yesterday's photos. We started at High Gravity Aerial Adventure Course in Blowing Rock and ended the evening seeing "Shrek, the Musical" at Lees-McRae College. A long day...and a lot of fun.

We started our day with an aerial adventure experience at High Gravity in Blowing Rock. The boys had excellent instruction. All tried. Some were up on the ropes for 20 minutes and some for over an hour. The facility had other games to play while waiting. Then nine of the twelve boys took a ride on &...

06/16/2026

Some photo glitches, but here's our album from day 2.

It was a very busy day. Stay tuned as I eventually add some photo descriptions. But briefly... We visited Mystery Hill first...which your boys will just have to tell you about it. You would have to be there to believe it...or not believe it. Then we had fun throwing axes and wrapped up the morning w...

06/15/2026

Day one is done. We did a bunch for an opening day. Click the link for the photo ablum.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/mindstretch/albums/72177720334201290/

06/13/2026

And tomorrow, it begins again. We have an absolutely amazing lineup of kids AND activities. It never gets old.

06/10/2026

When we're on trips, folks often comment how well behaved the boys are...and they wonder how they manage to keep "reasonably" in control. I wouldn't say we bribe the boys, but they know that the way to earn treats is when a complete stranger comes up to us and gives the group a sincere compliment. There have been a couple of trips where that never happened, but for the most part...they get plenty of compliments and plenty of treats. In fact, sometimes we don't have time to get all the treats in front of them. Our summer's trip begins this Sunday. If you follow our photos and see pictures of boys eating ice cream, slurping down shakes, etc. - you'll know they've been acting like angels. (They can also earn treats when all the rooms get an "A" on morning inspection.)

06/05/2026

A lesson in math & sharing all at the same time. When we have a group in one place for several days (like our upcoming week in Boone), we'll take the boys to a supermarket and let them go in and shop! Between the three boys in a room, they are told how much they can spend total on room snacks for the week. This is cheaper than hitting the hotel's vending machines. We're always interested in seeing how many of them choose kind of healthy snacks to the most decadent assortment of things they can buy on their budget. It's a good lesson. And a fun one.