It’s a hot one just about everywhere today, my friends! But our Apogee trips are keeping it cool, literally and, of course, figuratively, all over the planet.
Our Tuscan Service Adventure and Caribbean Service Adventures got underway today in Italy and Puerto Rico, respectively. Our Tuscans had the worst of it — everyone flew in on the red-eyes from the States, gave a quick “ciao” to Nick and Cait, were shuttled to Termini in downtown Rome, hopped on an early afternoon train to Umbria, switched trains (quickly!), got off in Assisi, met our bike outfitter, loaded the bikes, did a safety ride, and headed over to the campground to make a sleepy dinner. All of that said, when I spoke with Cait earlier, she said everyone was doing remarkably well! Don’t tell the Tuscan group, but our Caribbean group enjoyed nice daytime flights to San Juan, met Wyatt and Heidi at the airport, and enjoyed a quick air-conditioned van ride up to the rain forest… No pictures from either group today, but it’s their first day, so we’ll give them a bye.
Lots of other pictures from around the horn, though!
CI: Here are our Capers — enjoying their last afternoon on the Cape before their afternoon ferry to Boston. I think the nautical hat is a nice jaunty touch, don’t you?
DEX: Nora and Josh’s group had a great morning of hiking in Camden earlier today. They sent this shot — tentatively entitled “Deep Thoughts in the Woods” — from the Megunticook trail. They’re now on their way downeast — we may not hear from them again until they come off of the water on Wednesday!
VM: I just heard from Rachel — they had crushed their miles into camp this afternoon and had a pre-swim tent-setting-up contest. The Gold Stars went to Ben and Andrew who got their tents up in under two minutes. Well done, lads, well done.
NEMC: It’s hard to believe, but this is Jillian and Sam’s group’s last night together — they’re headed to Portland after a great day on the water in Casco Bay today. Here’s a shot of the crew learning the ropes with our kayaking outfitter earlier today.
CQA: Laura and Pat’s group sent this shot from the pool at their campground up near Wiscasset. For their first day of riding, these guys set a land-speed record into camp — it was probably the promise of the cool pool that moved them along!
CQB: Shem and Hannah’s crew went for a great day ride around Freeport today — they’ll hit the road north in earnest tomorrow. In the meantime, here’s a shot of their first dinner last night — mmmmmmm….
ACC: Way down in Texas, our now almost completely recovered ACC crew is on the road — albeit in a shuttle run by the unbelievably generous folks at the First Baptist Church in Jacksboro. After fueling up on DQ today, these guys will be back on their own saddles tomorrow morning and headed for the New Mexico border! (Note: Pete sent a shot of the group enjoying the aforementioned DQ, but for whatever reason, I can’t get it to upload – just imagine the group enjoying cool Blizzards under the flourescent lights of a mid-Texas DQ – purty, isn’t it?)