“Our battered suitcases were piled on the sidewalk again; we had longer ways to go. But no matter, the road is life.” - Jack Kerouac

September 12th, 2009

Well it seems the time has come once again for me to pack my suitcase and hit the road. I sit in my hotel room in Denver after several days of training in the Raytheon office, watching Anthony Bordanies "No Reservations" and thinking.... "Why did I pack so much?" But isn't that always the case? One would think that after doing this for so many years I would have it down. Not the case. Ooops!

I am not sure what this blog is going to look like. Should it deal with my travel and experiences? Or cooking and recipes? Or both? I have had so many people tell me that I need to do a blog that I finally decided to give it a try. I am not much of a writer, but I will try my best to share with y'all what I am experiencing during my time at Palmer Station, Antarctica and the amazing things I get to experience. Any suggestions I welcome with an open heart. I want to try and transport you to the place that I am. :)

We depart Denver Sunday morning, fly to Dallas and then on to Punta Arena's Chile. We will board the LMG http://www.nsf.gov/od/opp/support/gould.jsp and begin our eleven day cruise south. A normal cruise is only five days, however there is a science group that will be doing water sampling at different depths throughout the Drake Passage.http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Drake_Passage It will give us all a nice long ride to get to know each other. Hopefully it will be good weather. My crew that I will be working with seems great. We have a couple of people that have not gone to the Ice before and that is always fun. It is fun to be near them when they see their first iceberg. Or when they glimps the first sight of the station. I still get butterflies when we turn that corner and you can see just a glimps of it. Makes me smile just to think of it.