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If the Kids get to summer camp, shouldn't you?

Are you having fun? Are you taking those moments so very necessary for good mental health? I know it's difficult to carve out time and space for yourself. Our work places are more competitive. Our bosses are up against greater pressures to produce more with less. Thus, we're up against it, trying to be more productive with less time. Many of us find ourselves logging longer hours, sometimes... No, not sometimes, OFTEN, we're doing so off the clock, essentially working for free, more out of self preservation than a love of the job.

All of this is exhausting. And if we could only be heard, we could stand up and demonstrate with study after study that proves employees are more productive when they're rested, supported and working in a positive environment. You needn't have a degree in psychology to see this is true, think about the last time you were complimented, by ANYONE. How did you feel? If it was a stranger complimenting your look, did you have a spring in your step? A smile, did a smile sneak across your face? Did you find yourself wanting to pay it forward? Last time you complimented someone, did you notice a boost in warmth/kindness in that relationship. Each time I compliment my daughter, I end up with an 'I love you dad' and a hug at some point in the next few hours.

Look to other countries as examples as well. Many European countries are proactive in making sure their workforce has 'holiday'. Many of the travelers I've met have upwards of 6-weeks of leave each and every year. In Asian countries it's not uncommon to see the workforce exercising together at their place of employment. We've heard of the 'siesta'. Many Latin based cultures close in the afternoon, for siesta, the businesses close down and folks relax.

My intent is to encourage you for you. I know, as well as anyone, there are many times in our lives we must do what we must do and if that means long hours, we have to log them. Too, I know, as do you, we need to rest. We're human. Our bodies have requirements. Thus, you should take a few moments for you, time to recuperate, time to recharge.

These moments can be quick, easy and quite affordable. Something as simple as a morning walk. Some time to read. If you've been closed up and locked in your own world, morning coffee with some friends. If the wallet allows, a weekend getaway, something simple. Maybe a trip to the coast, stay in a motel chain, spend your days sitting on the beach. Or, if you live near a port of call, walk the dock districts. Pick up a local free paper, like the News and Review or the XX Weekly and look for free music venues. If you're buried in work, if your head is down, your neck knots of fatigued muscle from laboring over your computer, baby steps are the way to break back into the world of BALANCE!

Now, if your wallet is a bit healthier, look to something new, something a bit more challenging than a local getaway. Do something completely new, to get in and around new people, to experience new things and stimulate new personal growth. Try the Sierra Club or 20/30 Club. If you're really looking for something new, like a recent client told me, then try an adult summer camp. Adult meaning age and not anything that would require the movie rating company. Get to an adventure camp and have fun moving again, meeting new people and experiencing much personal empowerment.

Adventure trips are excellent sources of entertainment and extremely cathartic. For many of the same reasons as they're positive for kids, they're positive for adults. You get to meet new people. You get to challenge yourself and set new mental limits as to what you are and are not capable of accomplishing. You'll swell with pride as you overcome obstacles. You'll be surrounded by the best, most engaging staff you could ever hope to find. You'll have a bit of the finer aspects of life as someone cooks and prepares your meals for you. And you'll get out of the concrete walls that surround so many of us and get back into the fresh air of Mother Nature. It's really an excellent place to get normalized.

Since you're logging all these extra hours, I hope you're having fun. If you're like so many of us, you're not. You're counting on the ability to cash in on all these hours banked. You need to begin the withdrawal of YOU-TIME now. We all know this to be true. It's the nagging in the back of your mind. We're just incredibly tough creatures. We're able to put our bodies and minds through years of abuse, to put off what is essential to happy living. Our bodies will just keep plugging along. I put it off too long. I'm 100-pounds overweight, had a small heart blip on Mother's Day a year ago and my life had become all work. As mentioned, I'm encouraging baby-steps. I simply want you to take the time you deserve, the time you need to be more balanced, healthier and happier as well as more productive.

Finally I've begun making the time, little by little. I'm feeling better, laughing more, losing some of the weight and generally spending more 'quality time' with my family. They're happier for it too. You know, for all the reporting and negative in papers and on television, there is surprisingly little about taking care of ourselves mentally. I encourage you to do so. This past week I spent forty minutes of one afternoon riding my bike with my 15-year old daughter. It was the best time I'd spent in a long time.


Christopher Pyle is the owner/director of Action Whitewater Adventures of California. He has an adventure summer camp for teens and is offering a mini summer camp for adults this year. If you're interested in a mini-break, and would like to get together with adults, in a completely new and exciting venue, check out their camp page, make contact and share your interest in the adult program.

Having a Lighter Impact on the World Does Not a Cry Baby Liberal Make

Whether you're into the green movement or not, you've undoubtedly heard the word green far more than you ever thought you would. You don't have to be a card carrying member of the Green Society to want to make a change or two for the better. You don't have to believe there is anything wrong in the world to want to be less invasive on the world around you. Sometimes, without having to chase down a cause, you can do something new, something simple, simply because it makes sense.

We can agree doing good, feels good, it can impact our lives and the ones we touch in a positive manner. Too, trying to do every thing at once, to become carbon footprint free could burn you out quicker than a roadside flare. Here are simple and often free things we can do.



Much of daily lives are surrounded by technological advances that made aspects of life easier. Think about the napkin. A simple, mass produced paper product that made take-away food much, much easier. Paper towels? So very convenient. Now we realize how much wood is required to make our throw away face wiping products. At our home, we gone back to tea towels. We throw them in with laundry we would be doing anyway and we're reusing towel. As a special bonus, cloth is so much nicer on my baby fresh face!

Get back into local foods. Often you'll find these are all natural and/or organic foods. I've found some people recoil from these terms, as if I'm trying to convert them into something uncivilized. Some people think this means they'll be wearing linen tunics, leather sandals made from the carcass of animals that have died from natural causes, certified of course, banned from razors and forced to change their names to something akin to Wandering River Love, or something of the sort. There are growing studies on the benefits of all natural/organic foods for both the environment and ones own health but you don't need to switch for these environmentalists. Switch for yourself. You'll most often be supporting local businesses, that's good for your community. Too, you find food has something called, FLAVOR. Yea, this is so good, the foods are better tasting from meats, to vegetables to fruits, they taste good!

Ditch the plastic water bottles. I know, they're so flippin' convenient: They are! I still grab one on occasion when I'm out and I need water and I've forgotten mine. Remember, I said this is the easy tip article, the no guilt, the realistic. There are new studies on BPAs, bad chemical stuff emitted from certain plastics. Nalgene, you can find them at their name DOT COM, is now making BPA free bottles. You can check them out. There are metal bottles, often completely recyclable. Glass bottles are making a surge too. You can check out LoveBottleDOTnet (I'm typing these web addy's because the article companies don't like a lot of links in the articles, so, I'm trying to give you the resource and comply to guidelines). If you get a decent filtration system at home, Brita and PUR are two that are out there. You can use tap water with an added filter. There are new studies claiming tap water is often better for you than bottled water because municipal water districts aregoverned by the EPA having to test many times daily and water bottle companies are governed by the FDA only required to test once a week and are not held to as strict of standards. So, long and the short of it, tap water is better! Crazy but, okay.



Reduce the amount of packaging and or wrapping you're using. Opt to buy boxed laundry detergent instead of plastic bottled detergent. Decline to have things bagged by the grocer when you can easily carry out the good/goods. Simple, quick and easy something you can do and feel good about it.

I'm fairly certain, second to the mortgage and or rent payment for most of us, our utilities are the next largest house bill. For this reason, my personal interest, I looked into changing all my lights to the CFL style bulbs and I hooked my televisions and computers up to power strips. Long story short, by doing just these two things and actually shutting off my appliances at the power strip, I cut my electric bill in HALF! Do it, you'll love the savings.

Here's one I love, it's easy, easy! If you're a social network user, specifically Facebook and Bebo, they have an application you can use. It's free. It's called, Lil Green Patch. All you do is click it, daily, and click your friends' names in your group and send them a virtual flower. For every 10 you send, the advertisers of the site, save 1-sq foot of rain forest. They cap how many people you can send to each day, but hey, I'm at 20 people a day. So, every day, I send 20 people a virtual flower and I'm saving 2-sq feet a day of rain forest. It's quick, it's free and it's something simple you can do to help. Your friends don't have to send one back nor do they even have to click to accept your flower for their virtual garden, you simply have to send 'em.



According to the ACEEE, the greenest car in the US, for the 6th straight year is the Honda Civic.

Wanna help shoe children in other countries, check out Toms Shoes DOT com.

Check out Green Is Sexy DOT org for a bunch of commentary on green and whatnot. As a bonus, you'll learn it was founded by Rachel McAdams, an actress.

Sometimes doing good for goodness sake is rewarding. I hope the tips and ideas here are easy and worthy of your consideration.


For quality teen adventures and youth trips, it's been Action Whitewater for the past 20-years Rafting Adventure Camps are the genuine byproduct of this focus as they strive to provide the most comprehensive youth programs on the river. For information, video and photos of what you can expect at an adventure camp, visit our website.

Sacramento Day Trips Examiner: Long hot summer? Bored kids? Add Lotus' Action Whitewater.

Sacramento Day Trips Examiner: Long hot summer? Bored kids? Add Lotus' Action Whitewater.

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Summer Camps: The Best of Both Worlds - Parents and Kids

Odds are you're reading this article because you've explored, to some degree the idea of a residential summer camp. Whether you're a veteran at packing the kids off to summer for camp or a newbie to the whole process, there are a few thoughts that cross your mind.

First, there are a lot of camps. Second, many appear to offer the same program. Third, they're not necessarily cheap. Finally, for the money spent, isn't it fair that I expect a little enrichment?

The answer to each thought, yes. Yes, there are a lot of camps, choosing a camp can be an arduous journey. See a previous article on choosing a camp for more on this topic. Yes, many appear to offer the same program, often they are not the same, again, see previous article for more details on how to filter through the offerings. Yes, summer camps are not cheap, and neither should be the experiences your children receive. And yes, its quite fair for you to expect a bit of grooming, a bit of educating to take place.

Most children want to go off to play, to have fun and so, it would be ideal to have them at a camp that addressed your want for a little education and the child be none-the-wiser for being at this type of camp: It can be done.



The most obvious camp for education are camps specific to college prep programs or that offer summer classes, often on a university campus. Often kids will rebuff the idea of these camps because they don't appear fun and seem like more school. In these cases you need to be more discrete in the program you're looking at.

Try to locate camps that refer to team building. In their descriptions see what they do that is supposed to build teams. For instance, a rafting camp requires campers to work together to get their raft safely downstream. Hiking a mountain or climbing on ropes will require a team attitude for support and safety.

Query camps that refer to behaviors requiring people to interact one on one and in mass. Familiar words and phrases to look for include discussions, community, leadership, evening campfire, interconnectedness, etc. Camps using these words are, at minimum, reaching to achieve the benefits these activities offer.

Query the term, experiential education, and summer camps to find a camp with this focus. Schools are cutting programs, college entrance is ever more competitive, school sports is more and more about winning and less about learning to be a teammate. For these reasons, the need for education through experience, experiential education, is ever increasing. Therefore, camps that address this method of learning are at minimum working towards providing this type of education.

Here, an example of experiential education at work, viewed through the application of a rafting camp. In a camp requiring rafting, campers must learn how to prepare their gear each day, the must work together to get the gear in place, they must work to paddle in unison, they must work together in learning safety guidelines and what-to-do-when-scenarios, etc. Just the activity of rafting encompasses team, employing and exercising all the necessary skills you'd find in a boardroom or in real life scenarios.



If you're exploring residential camps, you probably have the means to send your child. It's natural and good parenting to want to get the most experience for your dollar spent. Your child's life will be greatly enriched from their summer experiences.

Of course camp should be a positive experience, but you can look for the industry terms to hedge your chances of finding a camp that will please you as well as your child. Best of camp-hunting and to having the summer of a lifetime!


Christopher Pyle has rafted the American River for 24-years. As owner/director of Action Whitewater's Adventure Camp, he allows Mother Nature and her incredible classroom to inspire and strike awe into campers. To see your future and learn how to enroll, visit the camp page.