Greetings, Summer Blog Readers! Today was the first day for several of our trips and the first full day for several more. As the first day, it is probably the last day where clean clothes figure prominently in each of the pictures below….

Kevin, our loyal and hardworking support staff, and I have been bouncing all over New England over the last 24 hours getting trips started in various locales. As of this writing, we have put nearly 100 students on trip in the Green Mountains, in the White Mountains, out on the Cape, way out west in Montana, way down in the jungles of Puerto Rico, and on the beach in South Carolina.

I had the pleasure of meeting most of our Cape and the Islands families in Falmouth yesterday. It was a classic Apogee scene of bustling leaders, bikes set up with panniers for the first time, moderately (I hope) anxious parents and kids shyly saying hi to each other for the first time. Any shyness has, I am sure, evaporated over the course of the day today. Wyatt and Chrissy’s group reported that everyone was feeling great way up in Provincetown — even after a perhaps only partially successful macaroni and cheese venture last night! On the other end of the Cape, Lucas and Danika’s group caught the ferry for Martha’s Vineyard and enjoyed the briny sea air all the way over. The picture immediately below catches Wyatt and Chrissy’s group after lunch — the next picture down shows Lucas and Danika’s group at their first ferry landing.

We’ll get more info from Drew and Rachel’s Vermont Hiker group and David and Anna’s New England Mountains & Coast group in the next day or so — both groups got started today. Anna’s trailer packing skills are shown off below.

In Montana, Sam and Rachel worked through a couple of minor bike issues on arrival in Bozeman. But the group had a great time getting to know each other last night and set off early this morning for points north. See the picture below — more clean clothes on display.

Down in Puerto Rico, our two inaugural groups got going yesterday, too. I heard from Mike after his group finished up their first day of service today on the western side of the island — he reported that in three hours in a small bay near Cabo Rojo, they picked up a whopping 28 bags of trash off the beach! In slightly more unfortunate news, neither Mike nor Annie’s phone can send pictures from Puerto Rico — so blog pictures from them will be fewer and farther between. Meanwhile, on the other side of the island, Lidia and Alex’s group were up the jungles of El Yunque. They described the area bunkhouse where they are staying to be reminiscent of the “raptor scene in Jurassic Park” — in a good way… They, too, completed their first day of service today; they were working to repair trails damaged by recent heavy rains in the appropriately-dubbed rain forest. See their first moments on the job in the rainforest below – again, note the very clean clothes as you definitely won’t see that again on this trip!