Day One only comes once a year, my friends!   And here we are, at the tail end of an, all-things-considered, smooth Day One.   I, Chad, spent the afternoon with our Cape Codders in Falmouth, Mass., watching our leaders Julie and Peter start their first-ever Cape Cod trip.   It was a beautiful day on the Cape for learning how to pack panniers, strap sleeping bags to the back of bikes and play the much-anticipated awkward name games (see below – and including, for the first year ever, “Angry Toads” — if you haven’t played it before, please consider it for your next backyard get-together.   Our ACC leader, Pete Lauro, can give you all of the rules about screaming and running around in circles.)

Speaking of Pete Lauro, he and his dauntless coast-to-coast co-leader Emily Weir have negotiated their way through a couple of delayed flights and early bike issues and are now dipping their wheels into the Atlantic (we’ll post pictures as soon as we can…) — before trading one ocean for visions of another.   Those visions will become the real deal — in six short weeks — after muggy nights in Georgia, Spanish moss in Alabama, hot, dry days on the Texas plains, the continental divide, an early morning desert ride through the Mojave and one last set of mountains before the Pacific glimmers in front of them on August 3.   It’s going to be amazing.

Tomorrow is a huge day in the little Apogee world — we have trips starting in Oregon, Montana (Anna and David already made the important state flag purchase, below), Vermont (X2), and in Italy.   Our first Tuscan adventurers are leaving the States as I type this and struggling to sleep before they meet Nick and Cait in Rome at about three in the morning our time.   How many memories are already in the works!