Hello Muddah, Hello Faddah. Here I Am in Camp Kingda Ka.

I have fond memories of my childhood summer camp days, including playing baseball, cooling off in the swimming pool, and getting hit in the groin during spirited games of dodge ball. (As an adolescent prank, I also sank a sailboat and got tossed out of the camp, but the less said about that the better.) All of us campers used to look forward to the camp's end-of-the-summer field trip to Pleasure Island, a wonderful Boston-area theme park that, sadly, closed in the late 1960s. I recently discovered a summer camp that skips the baseball and swimming altogether, and just visits theme parks. ThrillCoaster Tours takes teenagers on whirlwind trips to ride roller coasters around the U.S. and Canada. Summer 2008 itineraries include the "Boston Extreme Tour," which will make stops at Lake Compounce and Six Flags New England, the "Get to the Point" tour, which will visit Cedar Point and Hershey Park, and the park-packed "North of the Border" tour, which will give kids a chance to sample the coasters at La Ronde, Canada's Wonderland, Kings Island, Six Flags Great America, and other thrill machine outposts. Had there been a coaster camp when I was a kid, I would have been in park heaven. It sure would have beaten getting hit in the groin with a ball.