After my initial trip to Antarctica in January 2006, I came home and could not stop talking about the icy continent.  My parents were in the midst of planning a cruise to Alaska, which no doubt would be a beautiful trip, but I had to get them to Antarctica to see what I had seen.  Surprisingly, they were easy enough to convince.  We sprang into action, planning our family trip to Antarctica, leaving on Christmas day in 2006.  We would celebrate Christmas in the Atlanta airport, and spend New Year's Eve in the ballroom of the Marco Polo.  My sister, not to be outdone by her baby sister twice, quickly joined in the adventure. 

Below is a story I wrote for the local paper upon our return home.  My family agrees that this was a trip of a lifetime.  It's a shame that words and pictures can't describe the feeling of being there, surrounded by ice covered mountains and frosty air.  The link for the original story is also at the bottom of the page.    

The family that walks through penguin poop (guano) together, cha-chas the night away with six gay guys from the West Coast and rings in the New Year when the midnight sun is shining on nearby mountains must be ... having a blast in Antarctica?

And loving it, say Kara and Rhea , two competitive sisters who accompanied their parents, Sandi and Matt of Southern Indiana., to Antarctica's coastline in late December.

Kara, 27, had traveled to Antarctica the year before, "out of the blue."

Her excitement about the uncivilized bottom of the world rubbed off on her family, especially her older sister.

"Kara and I are having a contest to see who can go to all the continents first," explains Rhea, a 31-year-old registered nurse. "We're in a dead tie."

Kara: "We both need Asia and Australia."

Kara's boyfriend and Rhea's husband stayed home, and their parents delayed an Alaskan cruise in favor of an 11-day trip to the South Pole, but they don't regret it.

"I'd go again tomorrow," says Sandi, a librarian.

Matt, a business representative for the electrical workers union, shrugs: "I'm outnumbered 3-1. It's been that way 30 years!"

"People say, 'Why Antarctica?'" says Rhea. "We say, 'Why wouldn't you want to go see the only uninhabited continent?"

Kara: "You don't even notice the cold, you're so busy looking at penguins, seals and whales. Or meeting new people."

It took 10 hours and 14 minutes to fly to Buenos Aires (via Indianapolis and Atlanta) and another three hours to reach Ushuaia, the Argentine southernmost city in the world. There they boarded an old Russian icebreaker, the 422-passenger Marco Polo, for a day-and-a-half trip to the northern coastline of Antarctica.

There are no motels or shops, just a few outposts where military personnel spend six months a year. At the Chilean base they and bought a few souvenir trinkets for $20 apiece.

Each time the ship docked they donned red parkas and traveled in small boats called zodiacs. They had an hour at each stop to go exploring, watching leopard seals lounge on icebergs or penguins steal rocks from one another for nests and sometimes swim with a dolphin-like jump.

Rubber boots were required to keep them from tracking penguin dung aboard ship.

On the Marco Polo they stood on the windy deck marveling at the 30-degree scenery of an Antarctic summer, including blue icebergs, or went inside for great meals, live music and even dance lessons for those, like Kara and Rhea, who had party dresses waiting to be worn.

Matt made friends with some lively Australians and the family discovered a couple of their fellow travelers were from Southern Indiana.

"It's a small world," says Matt, noting one of the Hoosiers had been a security person who a few years ago took pictures of electrical workers when they were "locked out" by Vectren.

"The people we met aren't people you're going to run into at Walmart," laughs Kara, from some of the ship's Asian employees who invited the Hemenways to visit them in the Philippines to the group of six California men who vacation together.

The six guys teasingly told Matt they were going to lift him into the air.

Matt: "I said, 'You guys are going to hurt yourself.'"

But a snapshot of him lying sideways as he's lifted off the ground is a favorite from the trip.

"It's always been in our blood to travel, it's addictive," says Rhea."

"When we were young, Mom and Dad would take us everywhere, up both coasts."

Coming home, a disruptive passenger seated behind Matt threatened him with a non-existent knife, creating mini-pandemonium and drawing the FBI into the investigation once the jetliner landed in Dallas.

The man, an American, was taken into custody, bringing a bizarre end to a trip that, other than penguin poop, was downright beautiful.

http://www.courierpress.com/news/2008/apr/13/family-just-goes-with-floes-for-antarctic-fun/