After a nice little warmup with yesterday’s two trips starting — we are now fully engaged.   Seven more trips started today and the awkward name games were played across nine time zones!   Trips were started successfully in Puerto Rico, Italy, Montana, Oregon and Vermont today.   With the exception of some hijinks and shenanigans on the part of the airlines that made life challenging for a couple of our groups, everything went fine, bags and kids arrived safely and life is good (even if the jetlag in Italy is a bear on this first day…)!   All things considered, things have gone remarkably well — and it will be a lot of fun for regular blog readers to watch the groups in the pictures below go from nervous and shy (as they appear for the most part in the pictures below) to confident and goofy in the coming days.

Here’s Vermont Hiker playing an intense game of “Waaa!” in Northampton before tackling hte Green Mountain State.

Our Capers, now ensconced on the Vineyard, enjoyed a fine, amphibious game of “Thumper.”

Here’s Lucas and Anna’s group of Pacific Coasters, waiting on the last couple of folks to arrive, and playing some sort of hitherto unknown game with thumbs.

Mason and Rachel facilitated a killer game of Ninja before setting out on their trek from Manchester, NH to the Manchester, VT area and the start of their Vermont to Montreal adventure.

And here is our coast-to-coast trip sitting out a rain storm in the cool, frozen-goods section of the “General” grocery store near their campsite in the South Carolina lowcountry.   Nothing like a game of Mafia near the frozen waffles to while away a southern thunder shower!