So I'm a little behind on starting this blog. Only two weeks really, but so much has happened, and continues to happen, that I can hardly imagine conveying it all to this place. If you aren't in the mood to read lots of words, perhaps you shouldn't and just check out the pictures! But here it goes!

In a place far far away (from me currently), and for the past couple of years, two friends of mine have told many a tale of their years as snow birds. Of course, they strayed off the typical course and found themselves so far south, that there was no more south to be had, and stayed there for several months. Someone gave them shovels, and though it was a punishing -70 degree windchill at times, they merrily went about the work of unburying a world that succumbs to the nature of wind and subsequent accumulation of huge amounts of snow each and every winter. They said the sun never went down and the dance parties were unmatched, a phenomenon apparently attributable to intense solar radiation and canned peaches. Of course I was blown away by all these extremes and excesses, and found out that there is a whole community of seasonal work in this mystical place called the south pole, and jobs are at the whim of your fingertips, and a simple 30 minute phone interview with a guy named Dog. Fast forward nine months or so, and here we find a moose in an unexpected hemisphere. In fact, in three hemispheres all at once. But this is jumping ahead. My hope is to tell you a little bit about the adventure of getting here in the first place.

Leaving home is something I do a lot of, and since I have lived many places, I get to come back home quite often and have a load of different experiences. Most recently, and in rare form, I have found myself quite attatched to a home in the Northern most reaches of VA, in a community of farms and farmers. Leaving home felt a little strange for a second, and at the airport, while being dropped by two dear friends, I had a moment of home-sickness. Since then I have been through a hurricane of air travel, new faces, corporate jargon, and timeless beauty.

After a slough of domestic flights and days of (b)orientation in Denver, I found myself at the LAX Quantas terminal. This was exciting because it reminded me of Rainman, the only reference I have for Quantas in my life, and that they have never crashed a plane. (A comforting detail when one is about to fly over the abyss of the largest body of water on earth). I got to see (and thought until the last minute) I would be riding on their giant new airbus plane. This thing is huge. How do we humans do it? In conclusion, Quantas is a much nicer airline than I am used to, and all things considered, it was a tolerable 14 hour flight to Oceania.


















New Zealand found me gasping for breath, first at the fairyland beauty, and second every time my shuttle driver made a left. I got such a brief though breathtaking view of such a small and urban part of the country that I will have to reserve my praise for future adventure stories. 'nuf said. I landed here in time for election news, and some interesting election celebration posters. A very important topic all over the world. This was the main topic of conversation (aside from the irish dancing) at the Pub.

So on the morning of my departure, myself and a pile of what I would guess to be 100 folks, woke up at 4 AM, and piled onto a retired military cargo plane wearing a ridiculous amount of clothing. Probably the warmest, though certainly not the hipest clothes i will ever possess, they are currently keeping me alive! We had a ball trying everything on and requesting different kinds of Extreme Cold Weather Gear, or ECW's. I know it's out there and as soon as i find it I'll post an ECW Calendar-boy photo. I promise.

We came from places such as farms, offices, fire crews, construction sites, laboratories, Italy, France, NY, and even one friend from Martha's Vinyard. I think I am the only one from the mid-Atlantic. So they were taking us to Antarctica of course. Where else would such an odd assortment of uniformly overdressed strangers be headed to? (Yes, of course a Civil War re-enactment was a good guess)


My companions and I affectionately compared riding aboard the C-17 to Space Mountain. There are very few windows, so your experience is largely transmitted through surprise feelings of the world falling away and gravity shifting in that way that makes your parents sick to their stomachs. We loved it. That and the nice National Guard folks (who seem to all wear giant ears just like that trillion dollar disney icon) even let us into their private chamber where they controlled the ride.




The first views of the sea-ice and mountains were euphoric. It must have been a similar feeling to seeing the earth from space, an image we are all familiar with, but have no realistic reference for. The whole plane was giddy. And I don't think it was the Liquid O2 (They forgot any mention of this in the safety talk).