Antarctica. This vast continent of ice and rock has been drawing me towards her shores for the past seven years and now she has forever changed my life.
When Bob Kuhn and I were completing a three month trip around the world in the global south we shared our last supper in Aukland New Zealand. Bob was going to meet Renae in Palm Desert and I was leaving for Kauai to be with Brenda so we could unpack that experience with our wives.
Bob and I left the restaurant talking pensively about our trip and how it was sad to be splitting up the next day. In the midst of this we both said, “We should have gone to Antarctica.” It was the only continent that we have not travelled to together.
From that moment on, we would frequently look at each other and say “Antarctica” giving it a special power to invoke hope and vision. This year, we did it. We are here, and the impact of this adventure will stay with us for the rest of our lives.
My journal is filled with notes and observations that will provide fodder for future blogs and keynote addresses. I’m presently quite speechless about what we have experienced here. Others have described visiting Antarctica as like going to the moon. We are looking at the immensity of a part of the world largely untouched by human beings. What we are seeing is a dramatic series of contrasts between ice and stone, appearing just as it has been from long long ago.
“The thing that is most beautiful about Antarctica for me is the light. It’s like no other light on Earth, because the air is so free of impurities. You get drugged by it, like when you listen to one of your favorite songs. The light there is a mood-enhancing substance.”
― Jon Krakauer
It is going to take some time of reflection before I can share more, but I will.
Carson Pue 