First Day

I arrived at the Trenton Train station all safe and sound. I was picked up by an old Cadet friend, Chris Demas. There was another Cadet at the train station too so the three of us headed to the housing site.

When I arrived I saw many old friends and met some new ones. The best part of joining the tour is getting to see all these great people, members, staff and volunteers.

I found my son, Liam, got a hug and handed off to him his new shoes and air mattress.

Today was a bit of a special dinner because a great supporter of the cadets, Greg Pych, was bringing it in. He brought country ribs, corn, baked beans and a wonderful salad of mixed greens, grapes, strawberries and a neat mixture of three dressings. Greg prepared the ribs with a rub in the oven then finished them off on the grill with barbeque sauce. We did our special "cooler corn" and it came out great as usual. A very successful meal and the members were well pleased with it. Here are some shots of the food:

Country Ribs

Mixed Salad

Corn on the Cob cooked in a Cooler

Liam showing off his meal

At the Train Station

The station in Norfolk is packed! This is very good news for our new little station.

Get the Tour Calendar

This is kind of a how-to blog post, but since we all like to know where the tour is at any given moment, here is the link to the tour calendar:

http://www.yea.org/site/PageServer?pagename=cadets_tour

Here is the cool part, if you are a Google Calendar user you can add this calendar to be shown on your calendar. All you have to do is click the little button on the bottom of the calendar:

This will add the "The Cadets Tour" calendar to your Google Calendar display. The best part is this is not a copy of the tour calendar, but a link. When the calendar is updated by The Cadets, the entries on your calendar are updated automatically.

If you have an Android phone, this new calendar should appear on your phone in a short time, if you do not see it after waiting a while, go to your calendar display and use the setting "Calendars to Display" and  make sure that the calendar named "The Cadets Tour" is selected to be displayed. Also make sure that in the list of "Calendars to Sync" that the calendar is checked as well.

-Matt

Joining Tour 2013 in New Jersey

Hey All,

I will be joining The Cadets again on Tour starting this Friday. I will meet up with them after a very early train ride from Norfolk, VA. I will be with them from the 28th until the 6th.

I hope to post at least once a day this year, we will see how busy it gets.

-Matt

April Camp!

Lunch for The Cadets, grilled hot dogs and fixings, baked beans, fruit cocktail and cookies.

On the Train

We spent a wonderful couple of nights with our daughter in New York City. We went to a famous coal fired pizza oven place and did some shopping. I picked up a high capacity battery for my phone because I thought I might need it while I tweet and blog from the shows.
We are on the train from NYC to Boston and, though we were a bit late getting off, this is the way to travel. I have a 110 V socket right next to me, a comfortable seat and a quiet and pretty quick ride.
Both Kathy and I are looking forward to getting settled in so we can start helping. Also we are looking forward to seeing our son and all our "carrot" people friends, both old and new!
That is it for now, but I am using the mobile blogger, so I will try to post little bits more often.

Monday before the Saturday...

It is the Monday before the Saturday that we join The Cadets on their tour. This year, Kathy and I will be volunteering together and I think it will be much more fun to work together than at separate times like we did last year. Later this week we will be making the first leg of our journey to New York City to spend a little quality time with our daughter, Carlie, who interning there this Summer. We will take an early train on Saturday to Boston and meet up with the tour about mid-day.

We have begun our packing and this year seems to be a bit easier (to me) to pack. I am packing all of my shirts that wear well when you are hot and sweaty. I have quite a few of the various types of Dri-Fit, Under Amour and other types of shirts that do not show sweat, dry quickly and keep you cool. I have also packed a number of shorts that wear well and are comfortable. Of course, lots of socks and underwear and one sweatshirt if it gets cold. I am sure we will pick up some Cadets shirts and other items while we are on tour, so that should round out the clothes.


We are packing the air mattress, sheets and pillows because they are needed when we stay overnight at a school. Liam asked us to bring him a few small items so we have picked those up for him. Also, his childhood nanny from Germany, Manja, sent him a box stuffed to bursting with chocolate as a bit of a graduation present, so we will bring the boy that as well. Jay Travis asked me to bring up some Christmas lights to use for decorations, so I have packed them up as well.

That is about it for now, I will be posting from the tour so stay tuned.

Matt