antarctica: October 2013

It's been almost a year since I arrived in Antarctica. Although most of my time here was spent patching drywall in building 155, I have been lucky enough to see and do some amazing things, and meet so many incredible people. In two days I will be in New Zealand, eating fresh produce and trying to wrap my head around what I was doing here for the last year.

The first flight of winfly came in about six weeks ago, changing the dynamic of winter. All sorts of new people looking all tan and happy wandering around. It was weird. Two days later was the first sunrise. I got to take a trip out to the runway to see it. It's hard to describe the feeling of seeing the sun for the first time in four months. I was also lucky enough to get to go out for a day flagging a road on the sea ice. We went all the way out to Cape Evans and got to go inside Robert Scott's hut. I remember as a kid seeing pictures of Scott's hut in National Geographic and thinking how cool it would be to go there. Well, I actually did. It was amazing. Seeing all the artifacts that were left there and knowing how few people ever get to go there was the highlight of my Antarctic experience. The only problem was that my camera battery died right after I got there. Lucky for me, two of the guys I was with used to be professional photographers and gave me some awesome pictures. On the way back I saw the most spectacular sunset of my life. It was a good day.

So here I am, packing my bags and saying my goodbyes wondering when I will be back here. I had a contract for next winter remodeling building 210, which is what I was supposed to be doing this winter, but it just got put on hold again. I now have an alternate contract for next winter. We'll see what happens. I can honestly say that this was an incredible experience and I do want to come back, maybe not for a full year next time. Winter does do strange things to your brain. You get a lot of memory loss and a thousand mile stare. I think it's due to vitamin D deficiency. The funny thing is, you don't realize it until new people show up. Anyway, I hope you enjoyed my blog. If you want more info on McMurdo station, check out www.mcmurdo.usap.gov. There is a lot of interesting stuff about the US Antarctic program. If I get it together, I'll do another post with a bunch of pictures of this season. Hopefully I'll be on a beach somewhere on a tropical island.