Daniel Leussler:

We’ve finished our first day of training in Denver today, which was surprisingly short for anybody who wasn’t a supervisor (they got stuck with another couple of hours at RPSC HQ learning how to, well, supervise I suppose). After the flight in to Denver, I wandered out to the ground transport area to meet up with my shuttle, which was prepaid by RPSC and would take me straight to my hotel.

I was a little confused by the airport employees when I asked them where I should go, because they implied that it was “not right” in very disapproving tones that my shuttle wasn’t already there waiting for me. I didn’t feel like a 5 minute wait for the shuttle was all that bad, since the shuttle was supposed to come around at 10 minute intervals; after getting on and chatting with the other passengers (who were also heading to training and then the Ice) I was informed that the shuttle driver had actually been circling the airport at 10 minute intervals for the last couple of hours, with some of them having arrived much earlier than me. Lucky me that I had a later flight I guess.

Last night, I headed out to a local bar with Eli, a fellow future “Polie” who will be growing fresh food in our greenhouse this summer, plus working in the station store and a few other random jobs. He’d been to Palmer as a grantee for a few years, as well as a stint on the Laurence M. Gould, a research/resupply ship for the USAP (a job he didn’t recommend, as working hours on a ship are incredibly long even by Antarctic standards).

We had a few beers on a second-floor patio, and then managed to almost trap ourselves upstairs when the staircase turned into a balcony overlooking either a fashion show or something a little more scandalous later in the night; we pushed, squeezed, and excused our way down the stairs, and headed back to the hotel to get some sleep before our 7:15 shuttle the next morning.

Our shuttle from the airport was almost half people headed to Pole, which surprised me a little considering the difference in station populations. The training seemed to have more soon-to-be McMurdo (or Mactown, as it’s called) residents, but I suppose since their season starts earlier they’ve probably already deployed many of them. At one point we raised our hands to show who was new to the program, and I think it must have been over half.

The split between men and women was probably 60/40 or so, and there was definitely a noticeable difference between what one person described to me as the two types of people who head to the Ice: ex-military, and granola. We’re all there for the same reason though, so everybody seemed to get along pretty well. Everybody will have jobs to do during their shifts, and fun to have when they’re off, and food to eat and sleep to have in between.

Tomorrow is just breakfast, a presentation on safety, and then we’re off to Denver International to head out to Christchurch!