Trevor's Travel Binder, Part 5

Here's Part 5 of Trevor's Travel Binder! (To see it from the beginning, go here.)

On Saturday 10/11, we had a scheduled sea day. It was supposed to have been the only sea day of the 10-day cruise, but weather conditions had prevented us from visiting two scheduled ports. We enjoyed the relaxing day and took advantage of all sorts of shipboard activities. A highlight was watching my nephew Timothy compete in an egg drop competition. 

That night at dinner, Trevor asked everyone in our group to name their top 5 favorite things from the trip. It was very hard to pick just five! We went to so many interesting and beautiful places and learned so much. We ate great food and had lots of fun. I ended up listing the fall colors, Eckhart in the City scavenger hunt, Acadia National Park, Toronto, and Quebec City as my top 5, but there are at least 10 other things I could easily have substituted for any of those. This truly was a wonderful trip.

It was great fun to compare what each person had said they were looking forward to on Day 1 with the actual highlights they listed on Day 15.

We sailed into New York Harbor at sunrise on Sunday 10/12. The Statue of Liberty has never looked so beautiful. And our view of the New York skyline with the new World Trade Center couldn't have been better. We got off the ship at 9:00 am and took a shuttle to the Newark airport. After a 6 hour flight, a tense 30 minutes of searching for a missing piece of luggage, waiting for a shuttle, and an hour-long drive (interrupted with Trevor announcing he might throw up, which fortunately he did not), we were finally home. As Trevor wrote in his journal, "This wasn't a fun day, but the whole trip was very fun."

Here's a look at some of the "Cool Stuff" Trevor put in his Travel Binder.

We gave Trevor $80 to spend during our 16-day trip. All souvenirs, snacks, or extra activities he wanted would come out of that budget. We weren't sure how that was going to go; in the past, Trevor has been eager to spend money right after receiving it. But he did an amazing job of budgeting. He thought about how many cities we'd be visiting (10, although two ended up being canceled) and decided that he could spend around $8 per city. He thought about every purchase very carefully and made excellent choices. More than once, he commented that he would have bought a particular item if it had cost X, but it was not worth it to him at Y. 

Here is how he spent his money. He got a great variety of items, including a postcard to send to his classmates and $2 worth of Canadian nickels to pass out during his class presentation. He came home with $15.93 left over. 

We gave him $10 and $5 Canadian bills to put in his binder.

He kept one coin of each denomination to put in his binder as well. I showed him how to sandwich the coins between clear contact paper so that he could display both sides of each coin.

Trevor used his Travel Binder to create a slideshow and presentation for his class. He started by dictating everything he wanted to tell his classmates, then we went through the photos together to match them with his text. He did an amazing job. If you'd like to read his text, you can see it here.

This was such a wonderful project. I am so grateful to his teacher for giving him such a creative assignment. Trevor loved doing it and has a record of the trip that he can keep forever.