Although the end result — Six Months in Antarctica! — sounds exotic! and adventurous! getting there began with Power Point presentations.

I spent two days in Denver getting ready for our big trip. We — a group of about 130 people — were to be the second flight into McMurdo this season. Eventually (once we knew our jobs), we would relieve the “winter-overs” – a stalwart group of about 100 isolationists who’d stayed at the station all winter long through cold and darkness and without shipments, mail or escape. Although we were scheduled on the second flight, we were wondering if we’d catch up to the first. A C-17 planeload of people were swilling suds in New Zealand waiting for a flight, with Antarctic storms grounding their flight two days running. We too were hoping for bad weather; I’d love to find Frodo on the company dime!

But we were here to work, our Denver employees reminded us. And work in Antarctica requires orientation.  Orientation was the typical power point marathon, about what you’d expect in getting about 100 of us clued in on basics about the program, safety and expectations. There was paperwork to fill out, travel funds to collect (yay!) and a food safety class to attend under a tree at the Raytheon headquarters.

Of course, my favorite part about getting oriented was meeting my fellow ice people, and getting the skinny on McMurdo life over beers and good meals. Eat “freshies” while you can, they tell me. Apparently I’ll be scraping a lot of chicken from future plates.

In New Zealand, I slurped up as much green as I could at the Christchurch’s botanical garden, my eyes pulling at the landscape so hard, there was a suck noise like a kid at a chocolate milkshake.

I’d been reminded to wash my eyes in as much green as possible before the whitewashed landscape of Ant. My ears perked up too, and I filled them with Michigan summer night chorus of frogs and crickets and the Denver/New Zealand song of laughter among new friends.