I am in Antarctica.

It has been over a week since leaving Portland and most of it has been pretty boring. I flew to Denver for 2 ½ days of slow-going orientation. I flew through LAX and Auckland, NZ to Christchurch NZ. Christchurch is the Deployment Center (CDC) for the McMurdo and South Pole Stations. The city itself is not very exciting for 2 days of visiting and I kept a low profile as I felt a cold (illness) coming on. On Friday Oct. 5th, I went to the Deployment Center to try on the Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear and that was my only official duty other than to show up the next morning at 6am for the flight.

Getting ready for the flight means re-packing some items into the appropriate luggage, deciding what items can be stored in the Deployment center (adjacent to the airport), putting on required ECW gear for the flight and arrival, and packing the rest of gear to make sure that the checked baggage weighs less than 75 lbs total. The CDC has its own terminal where we checked with the Military personnel that would be flying us to the Ice. We watched an introduction film, grabbed a box lunch, and took a shuttle to the C-17 military jet across the street. I was the second person off the shuttle and on to the plane, in a matter of seconds. This flight had more cargo than people, so most of us were seated against the sides of the plane, facing inward to the large pallets of cargo running down the middle. There are only a few precious windows on the plane, so for the most part I actually didn’t feel like I was flying. Some of you know that I am not always comfortable flying, or more accurately, flying with turbulence. But I have been able to lessen my flying anxiety greatly and the Antarctic flight was actually quite peaceful. The plane is so open and the exposure of all the cables and structure and such really helps me understand the entire machine as a whole. It will keep flying. The last hour of the flight (out of 5 hours total) was the opportunity to peek through the windows and see the beginning of the continent, and under clear sunny skies. As we landed, one could say the weather changed, although we couldn’t tell. There was no chance to anticipate that when the doors opened, it would be -51 degrees outside with wind chill. Filing out of the plane, there is not much chance to stop and think about it. Move towards the red shuttle in front of you and get inside. Look back at the plane. Wait, I can barely turn around with my red jacket and when I do, I just see the inside of my hood.