DURING the month of October, Denver resident Herzl Melmed was on a mission. Clasping his handlebars with gritty determination, 73-year-old Melmed peddled through Colorado’s majestic but “unforgiving” Rocky Mountains, and continued through Arizona’s blazing arid desert — a journey which took 20 days and spanned 1,000 miles, from Denver to Phoenix. Sponsored every mile of the way, the South African-born doctor was on a quest to raise money to support bike clubs for Israeli children living close to the Gazan border in the western Negev.

“What child does not like to cycle?” asks Melmed in a telephone interview after his return to Denver. “And yet, for the kids living close to Gaza, this everyday ‘normal’ activity is denied; parents are afraid of the kids riding unattended, and so very few have bikes!

WHEN Fort Collins resident Dick Heyman mentioned to his friends at Congregation Har Shalom in early October that he was heading south for a few months, many thought that he would be traveling to Florida to get away from the cold Colorado weather. No one imagined that he would be traveling “really south,” like “down under” — Antarctica south.

Heyman has been at McMurdo Station, Ross Island, Antarctica for the past 3 months as a network engineer for Raytheon Polar Services.

He supports the scientists there by managing, installing and monitoring various devices that allow network connectivity throughout the 1,100 person facility and back to the US.

A typical week for Heyman consists of a nine hour workday Monday through Saturday New Zealand time. He commented: “That’s actually Sunday through Friday in Colorado as we are on the west side of the International Dateline.”