by ARA Content
(ARA)
- With family life so busy these days, a little
planning can reap big rewards in creating fun vacations
that bring together not only the immediate family,
but several generations at once, and for years to
come!
If
you zoom in on any vacation spot on the planet,
you'll find examples of how the family vacation
tradition has materialized over and over again.
For example, at the family-friendly Campbell's Resort
on Lake Chelan in Washington state, four families
have created a tradition of gathering the whole
clan together for one week out of the year, every
year, for decades.
"Every
year, our 'never to be missed' vacation gives the
family an opportunity to get together and reflect
on the past year, and to look forward and plan for
the next year," said Wayne Green, whose family
has been coming to Campbell's Resort during the
same time frame every year for 51 years. "My
mother and father, Sherman and Myrtle Green, started
the tradition, and we couldn't imagine breaking
it. Ties and traditions run deep in the Green family."
Wayne
was only two years old when he first went to Campbell's
Resort. He grew up vacationing there, and loved
the lake activities, especially swimming out to
the floating dock and spending time boating on the
lake. In fact, it was so dear to his heart, he even
spent his honeymoon there! Since then, Wayne and
his wife, Kathy, have kept up the tradition. Their
daughters, Julie and Kristy (third generation),
also grew up on annual summers at Campbell's Resort.
Julie and Kristy now both return every summer with
their husbands, Patrick and Rick, and the rest of
the Green family. Kristy and Rick's 2-year-old son,
Deirek, and soon to be born baby are fourth generation
at Campbell's Resort.
"We
thank our grandparents, Myrtle and Sherman Green,
for starting the Campbell's vacation tradition.
We love being together as a family and reflecting
on the past year while we are at Campbell's. We
enjoy seeing a lot of the families from year to
year and the changes to the lake. We have so many
happy memories of Campbell's Resort," said
Kristy and Julie.
The
Kashino, the Lentz and Abraham families, from grandparents
on down to third and fourth generation babies, have
also created long-standing family vacation traditions
at Campbell's. Phil and Irma Lentz have been bringing
their family to the resort every year since 1950.
"We've not only watched our kids grow up at
Campbell's, but also the Campbell boys, Art and
Clint, who are now running the place. That's pretty
special!" said Phil.
This
year will also mark the 44th consecutive vacation
year at Campbell's for the Kashino family. "Once
we park the car, aside from going golfing, we hardly
use it at all, as Campbell's has everything we come
for: good food and accommodations, beautiful lake
and beach, and best of all, the good friends we
have made throughout the years," said Louise
Kashino, the matriarch of the family.
"Campbell's
is like a second home to us," said Brent Abraham,
whose father and mother, Charlie and Olivette, first
found Campbell's in 1951. Brent met his future wife,
Kristin, at Campbell's, and they, too, keep returning
with their own children, to enjoy the extended family
and fun.
And
to make these celebrations even more extraordinary,
the resort, a fourth generation family business,
is celebrating its 100th anniversary on July 1.
"The
opportunity to get acquainted with such nice people
is one of the most enjoyable aspects of the hospitality
business," said Art Campbell, general manager.
Art understands the importance of family continuity.
His great grandfather built the original Chelan
Hotel in 1901. On July 1, the Campbell family, now
in its fifth generation, is hosting a community
event to celebrate the resort's 100th anniversary.
Now that's a family tradition!
What
to Look for in Creating a Family Vacation Tradition:
A
family atmosphere in a community that celebrates
the vitality and vivaciousness of families on vacation.
A variety of activities. You will need something
for every stage of the life cycle. Toddler pools,
classes for pre-school and elementary school-age
kids. On-site and off-site parks, both natural and
man-made, with rides and amusements, as well as
natural environments for spotting wildlife. Safe,
and wholesome social gathering places for teens
and young adults are a must!
Guest rooms that bring families together, yet offer
privacy.
Spaces for gathering during family cookouts and
parties. A barbeque with covered tables at beach
side, for instance.
Reasonable rates and amenities that make life easy.
Parents are on vacation, too. Eating out three meals
a day is expensive, and yet adults don't want to
be kitchen slaves while on vacation! A utility kitchen
with microwave and dishwasher, plus basic equipment
and utensils, makes meal preparation quick, fun
and affordable.
A location near activities and services. From the
golf course to the supermarket, getting pleasure
and provisions should not be an all-day excursion.
Start now! Before you know it, you will have a clan
gathering that will cultivate family closeness.
You'll build memories by which to day-dream until
you get back to that favorite vacation stop again!
If you want to read more about the families in this
article, visit www.campbellsresort.com and click
on the guest histories link.
About
The Author
This article courtesy of ARA Content, http://www.aracontent.com
e-mail:
info@aracontent.com
Digging
for Dinosaurs
BY
DIXIE M. JORDAN
©
COPYRIGHT 2003 BY PARENTS' PRESS
Reprinted from the March 2003 print edition of Parents'
Press
Last
summer, the Bury family of Des Moines, WA
Christie, Steve, and their two daughters, Chantell,
11, and Cortney, 10 headed to Eastern Montana
for their annual vacation. This is dinosaur country,
and they signed up for a popular Montana activity,
a dinosaur "day dig."
Equipped
with awls, dental picks, and a little on-the-spot
instruction from the dig's field paleontologist,
they began to prospect for fossils on the sagebrush-dotted
bluffs. Ninety minutes later, they hit the paleontological
jackpot: The small pile of disintegrating, fossilized
bones they found turned out to be bits of the first
Tyrannosaurus rex found at this site.
At
first, the Bury family didn't know what they had
discovered and neither did paleontologist Chris
Morrow. Morrow instructed them to keep looking and
to expand the area of their search. Despite the
110-degree heat, their enthusiasm remained high,
and they soon found a larger bone.
"We
were actually working on a real dinosaur bone!"
says Christie Bury in an article on the family website.
"Did we find a good section of a Triceratops?
We were in an area populated with that dinosaur.
Chris said we had to uncover more for him to tell
for sure."
By
this point, Morrow and two teenage dig participants,
Jaime and Chandler, were also working at the Burys'
site, carefully wielding paintbrushes and dental
picks.
"Finally Chantell and Jaime uncovered the area
of bone that made Chris stop and take a few deep
breaths," Christie continues. It was part of
a pubic bone, which is quite different in herbivores
like Triceratops than in predatory, meat-eating
dinosaurs. "Chris said, 'I think what we have
here is a T. rex!'"
"We
had been digging here for twelve years and hadn't
found a T. rex," said Joseph Cornwell, head
of the non-profit PaleoWorld Research Foundation,
which sponsored the dig. "Here was this family,
doing something quite different from Disneyland
for a vacation really working and learning
together."
The
family's find has been dubbed "Big Bury"
in their honor, and excavation will continue on
it this summer. Eventually, Cornwell says, the T.
rex will be displayed in a museum in Jordan, MT,
the town that serves as a base for PaleoWorld's
summer digs.
Kids
Teaching Parents
Not every family that digs together will make a
discovery as exciting as Big Bury. But paleontology
(the study of fossils) is one of the few remaining
fields where amateurs can make real contributions
to science.
It's
also a field where young people can play a significant
role. A 12-year-old farm boy discovered the first
known dinosaur footprints in in North America back
in 1802. Thirteen-year-old India Wood picked up
some intriguing fossils while on vacation in Dinosaur
National Monument. After living in a box under her
bed for a while, they were identified by paleontologists
as part of the most complete Allosaurus ever found
in Colorado.
In
Great Falls, MT, a 17-year-old boy found what appeared
to be a grayish-brown bone sticking up from the
dirt where his father was excavating for a retaining
wall. Four years later, after a stint as a doorstop,
the bone was identified as part of a Stegosaurus.
It may have lived farther north than any other known
examples of this dinosaur. It will be excavated
this summer.
In
recent years, more and more families are taking
part in organized dinosaur digs. Possibilities include
Dig-for-a-Day programs that welcome younger kids,
strictly scientific expeditions that accept some
families with teens as volunteers, and even packaged
vacations with first-class hotels, horseback riding,
and river rafting that encourage grandparents and
grandchildren to dig together. The majority of programs
are located in Montana, Wyoming, and Colorado.
"Kids know a lot about dinosaurs what
they looked like, what the environment was like
then," says Cornwell. "Here they have
the opportunity to actually teach mom and dad."
Cornwell
founded PaleoWorld largely to "bring the science
of paleontology to the average person," especially
young people and families, by letting them join
a real expedition for a day or a week. Nonetheless,
dinosaur digging is not for everyone, he cautions.
"This
is not a tour you're there to work,"
he stresses. Children as young as 6 and 7 have participated
in Paleo-World digs, but parents should use discretion
in deciding if their kids can handle working several
hours a day in the blazing Montana sun.
Many
Ways to Dig
"I don't run a paleo dude ranch," emphasizes
Nate Murphy, curator of paleontology at the Phillips
County (MT) Museum and director of the Judith River
Dinosaur Institute, which will be excavating the
Great Falls Stegosaurus t
Nonetheless,
he is happy to include families with teenagers 14
and over (the minimum age approved by the institute's
insurance company) on the five-day programs he runs
each summer in the Montana badlands. A recent participant
discovered Leonardo, a mummified Hadrosaur brachylophosaurus
that has created considerable excitement among dinosaur
enthusiasts.
"We
tend to attract the person who is really into dinosaur
paleontology," Murphy says. "But sometimes
parents will do this for their kids and end up coming
back themselves the following year."
As
with many of the longer digs, the institute's participants
may camp nearby or stay at a small-town motel and
join staff and volunteers for a daily drive to the
current year's site. Often a particular restaurant
or hotel becomes an informal dig headquarters.
Michael
Menard curates historic sites and handles special
events (including digs) for the Museum of Western
Colorado and its Dinosaur Journey in Fruita, CO.
Day digs are a good way for families to "get
their feet wet" and find out if they enjoy
the experience, he says. This program includes several
hours participating in a real dig in an area that
has yielded a wide variety of dinosaurs. Then it's
back to town for an introduction to lab work and
fossil casting and a tour of the museum.
In
general, he says, the museum's Dig-for-a-Day and
three-day digs are best suited for kids from 7 or
8 into their teens. But Dinosaur Journey programs
are open to all ages "and we've had 5-year-olds
who wished they could stay for a week," he
notes. These popular programs tend to fill up by
late spring, and reservations are suggested even
for day digs.
Unlike
most scientific digs, J.P. Cavigelli's Western Paleo
Safaris lets participants keep some of the fossils
they find from dinosaurs and a variety of other
ancient plants and creatures. These are vacation-oriented
camping trips with fossil collecting on private
ranches. Agreements with the ranchers govern what
participants can collect and keep usually
large dinosaur bones stay with the landowner.
Most
of Western's week-long trips require a minimum age
of 12 to 16. But this year Cavigelli will have a
shorter, three-day trip in Wyoming aimed at families
with kids as young as 8, with a focus on dinosaur
bones.
More
luxurious and expensive is the Family
Dinosaur Discovery Tour offered this summer by the
Wisconsin Alumni Association, Aug. 9-15, in Grand
Junction, CO. "Dig side-by-side with scientists
in a quarry where incredible discoveries have been
made, including bones from eight species of dinosaurs,"
enthuse the program's organizers. And do it in considerable
comfort, with guided hikes and rides, picnic lunches
and barbecues, fossil rubbing and river rafting.
Grandparents as well as parents are encouraged to
attend; children get a discount from adult prices,
which start at $2,400.
If
you decide on a dinosaur dig, as the focus of your
family vacation or a one-day activity, start planning
now and research carefully. Programs come, go, and
change from one year to the next, and vary widely
in creature comforts, minimum age requirements,
and their emphasis on working, learning, or vacationing.
DETAILS:
PROGRAMS MENTIONED IN THIS ARTICLE
Dinosaur
Journey
Museum of Western Fruita, CO
(888) 488-DINO
www.dinodigs.org
Judith
River Dinosaur Institute
Box 429
Malta, MT 59538
(406) 654-2323
nmurphy@ttc-cmc.net
www.montanadinosaurdigs.com
PaleoWorld
Research Foundation
(866) 678-0911
FAX: (540) 678-0911
www.paleoworld.org
Western
Paleo Safaris
P.O. Box 1042
Laramie, WY 82073
Toll-free phone, from U.S. only: (888) 875-2233,
use PIN 7737.
www.westernpaleo.com
Wisconsin
Alumni Assn.
ww.uwalumni.com/travel/family.html
For details of a similar program to be offered in
June by the Iowa State University Alumni Assn.
Academic Travel Abroad, Inc.
1920 N St., NW, Suite 200
Washington, DC 20036
(202) 785-9000
(800) 556-7896
FAX: (202) 342-0317
www.academic-travel.com
DETAILS:
A SELECTION OF OTHER PROGRAMS
Dinosaur
Research Expedition
Hagener Science Center #219
P.O. Box 7751
Havre, MT 59501
(800) 662-6132, ext. 3759
(406) 265-3700, ext. 3759
http://scimath.msun.edu/dinosaurs/index.html
E-mail: clousev@yahoo.com
Seven days of camping and researching a newly discovered
dinosaur n esting ground. Minimum age: 13.
Old
Trail Museum
Choteau, MT
(406) 466-5332
E-mail: otm@3rivers.net
www.oldtrailmuseum.org/dinodig.html
Two-day field course in paleontology. Minimum age
determined on an indivdiualized basis.
Pioneer
Trails Regional Museum
12 First Ave. N.E.
Bowman, ND 58623
(701) 523-3600
E-mail: paleo@ptrm.org
www.ptrmorg/page/paleo.html
Day tours of active fossil-bearing sites, with some
participation. Participants must be able to hike
up to two miles in rough terrain. Those under 18
must be accompanied by an adult.
Royal
Tyrrell Museum
P.O. Box 7500
Drumheller, Alberta, Canada TOJOYO
(403) 823-7707
Toll-free from U.S.: (888) 440-4240
FAX: (403) 823-7131
E-mail: info@tyrrellmuseum.com
www.tyrrellmuseum.com
Day digs. Minimum age: 10.
Timescale
Adventures
Bynum, MT
(800) 238-6873
(406) 469-2211
E-mail: info@timescale.org
www.timescale.org/main.html
Day digs and longer camping expedition. Minimum
age: 10.
Wild
West Vacations & Travel
wwwwildwestvacationsand travel.com/codydinoyell4.shtml
A six-day family vacation package that includes
a one-day dinosaur dig. The itinerary also includes
stays at a guest ranch and in Yellowstone Park,
a visit to the Buffalo Bill Museum, and several
optional activities.
The
Wyoming Dinosaur Center
110 Carter Ranch Rd.
P.O. Box 868
Thermopolis, WY 82443
(800) 455-DINO
(307) 864-2997
E-mail: wdinoc@wyodino.org
www.wyodino.org
Small day digs.Minimum age: 5.
