I have just finished cleaning the frozen snow from a fork loader named Sundog when the radio on my hip crackles to life. “Cargo Meg. Cargo Meg. This is Jim.” “Go ahead, Jim,” I say, leaning against the loader’s tracks. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define… Read More
When I climbed out of the skied LC-130 airplane at the South Pole, I felt instantly at home. It seems perhaps a little strange that a place where I have lived for only months should feel so comfortable – especially a place as foreign as the South Pole… Read More
The South Pole briefing occurred in the McMurdo Station galley, where all of us anxiously awaiting news of flights gathered over still more mugs of coffee. The small, cold-weather planes that will open South Pole Station have left Chile and are on their way. I’m… Read More
It’s difficult enough to get to Antarctica. One team of scientists has an even more challenging goal: to drill through the frozen Antarctic sea ice – and explore the ocean beneath it. Dr. Stacy Kim is one of the few scuba divers who have explored… Read More
Everyone load up – we’re headed to Cape Evans.” It’s a Sunday at McMurdo Station, Antarctica, and we’re taking a trip 25 miles away across the sea ice. The weather is perfect, clear and blue. We load up three Deltas – large, wheeled vehicles holding… Read More
McMurdo Station – a busy hub on Ross Island – is known as “The Gateway to Antarctica.” In the summertime, 90 percent of U.S. Antarctic participants either pass through or reside here. Some, like myself, stop here en route to the South Pole or to field camps and… Read More
It was late in the evening when the C-17 that carried me from New Zealand back to Antarctica landed on the sea-ice runway of McMurdo Station. The touchdown of skis on frozen, snow-covered ice was perceptible only by a light “whump” from my seat in the back of… Read More
“DELAYED” read the piece of paper tacked up in the lobby of the Christchurch YMCA. “Personnel moved to flight P004: Meg Adams …” It was day five of my stopover in Christchurch, New Zealand, and still no flights had been able to make it to… Read More
My life is about to change 150 degrees Fahrenheit. I’m exchanging the scorching deserts of southern Arizona for the frigid, polar desert of Antarctica. From temperatures in the triple digits, I’ll soon be back in the subzero climate of the South Pole. The word “extremism”… Read More
I know right away that Karl Hoffman is a good guy because of how happy his animals are. When we pull into the driveway of his Arizona ranch, two of his horses come out to greet us like giant, overgrown housecats. They stick their noses into the car… Read More
Oh, I’d say I’ve lived just about everywhere in North and South America by now,” Skyfox told me. “But I’ve lived on the border longer than anywhere else.” Just crossing the threshold of Skyfox’s house, four miles north of the Mexican border in Arizona, is… Read More
After just a few weeks in the Arizona-Sonora Desert, I realized I had learned the smell of water. It rains on average just 3 to 15 inches a year here; The cacti hoard the moisture, turning flowers hopefully to the sky. Hiking through the scorched canyons, I found… Read More
Hold on, y’all. This might be bumpy.” The dozen passengers of the red pickup truck affectionately dubbed “the Roja” braced themselves as the road approached a creek bed in southern Arizona. The truck tipped into the gulch, tires growling against the gravel, then climbed back out triumphantly under… Read More
As I sit with Andrea in her small house on Calle Chopo, talking about her family members in Maine, she suddenly looks at her watch. It is almost 7 o’clock in the evening. “Hang on,” she tells me. “I have to get out my job.”… Read More
The taxi takes us to Ana Santamaria’s house, not far from the University in Mexico where she teaches. “We just have a little bit to do today,” she says to me, turning around from the front passenger seat and smiling. “Noon to 3 or so.”… Read More
Maria had just finished washing her hair in a basin in the courtyard of her house when I arrived to visit. She came down toward me slowly, using her cane. “Do you need help?” I asked her. googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes… Read More
Teacher, are we meeting tomorrow?” asked Noe, shaking dirt from his shoes after a long afternoon of working with the Flower Growing Association. “Sure,” I said, “right after my English class.” googletag.cmd.push(function () { // Define Slot var slot_sizes = [[300,250]]; var new_slot_sizes = [];… Read More
My hiking boots sink into the freshly tilled dirt and my camera is secured to my back with a rebozo shawl. In the Mexican village of San Francisco Uricho, I’m working the earth with a hoe and pulling up weeds. It is already late afternoon. Read More
If it rains enough, I can bathe. I am staying in the house of Adela Garcia Martinez, a 73-year-old matriarch in the rural Mexican village of Charahuen. A little town of 60 families, Charahuen has no running water and no sewage system. Drinking water is… Read More
For about 10 semipanicked seconds, I wondered how my Spanish had suddenly become so poor. Gathered in a circle with a group of residents and elders from the pueblitos, I found that I couldn’t understand a thing that the speaker was saying. Then I realized… Read More
I’m sitting on the floor of an old Volkswagen bus, bouncing along increasingly crumbly streets through the outskirts of Morelia, Mexico. Half a dozen other women and I are crowded into the back of the bus, bantering in Spanish and talking with big hand gestures. I met them… Read More
I sleep on the roof, overlooking the other housetops in the Mexican city of Morelia. My room – a laundry room connected to the rest of the house by several clotheslines – is small but sheltered, and with the door open I can sleep under the sky in… Read More
I was sitting in Candace Austin’s office at Literacy Volunteers last August when she first convinced me to go to Morelia, Mexico, with her to teach English. During an hour we spoke about what we wanted to do: Make cross-cultural connections, build on the ties… Read More
Meg, will you cook dinner tonight?” My mother looks up at me from over her morning crossword. Let me tell you something about my parents. They are what you call “foodies.” Basically, this means that if you serve them something tasty that was pre-made or… Read More
I’m sitting at a large banquet table, and I have to admit that I’m a little overwhelmed. The conversation next to me keeps switching between English and Spanish. I join in whenever my mouth isn’t full. The plate in front of me is laden with an incredible assortment… Read More
The Trail Ridge Road through Rocky Mountain National Park is often impassable. Traversing the mountains through Milner Pass, the road climbs to an elevation of 12,183 feet and crosses the Continental Divide. Subject to the independent and volatile weather systems of the Rocky Mountains, the road gives the… Read More
In Denver, they have what they call “Mountain Weather.” It took me just three days to fully grasp what that entailed. On my first full day in the Mile-High City, I thought I would die of heat. I was already sunburned, and the warmth seemed… Read More
If left to my own devices as a child, I would invariably end up covered in pine sap and brambles, halfway up a tree somewhere in our backyard. I would like to say that this changed as I got older, but my college housemates never questioned who was… Read More
After two long days of overnight flights and many airport layovers, the familiar sight of the small Bangor-bound plane was a welcome one. This was the last leg in a long journey: I was homebound from Antarctica. Returning to Maine always has held some ceremony… Read More