Signing off

Well I am officially home, and I have been for a few weeks now. Sorry I'm just getting this posted now. I guess I've been a little distracted with being at home. :)

This will be my last post on this blog since it's my "Antarctic Adventure Blog" and I'm no longer in Antarctica then I guess it's natural that it should come to and end. I'm still really excited to be home. I suppose I may miss it one day but right now I'm just glad I don't need a parka to go outside! I've been asked a lot if I'm going to go back and I think I've just been there, done that, so I think I'm done.  I may look for some other fun adventure places to go work. There is always Kwajalein, I know someone working there who could get me in.  Maybe try working at the top of the world since I've been to the bottom.  I'm also very seriously looking into starting school because I'm kind of tired of the computer nerd gig.  So I've got a whole bunch of maybes right now, but nothing for sure yet. 

I wanted to thank you all for taking the time to read my blog. I've heard from a number of people that they've really enjoyed it, it's nice knowing someone was actually reading this.

I took a bunch of pics and videos on my 12,000 mile trek home so I thought I'd put them all here. This post is a little long but since it's the last one I had to squeeze it all in there, so enjoy.


Here is my room put back pretty much the way I found it and ready for inspection. I passed. Bye bye winter room, we had many special nights together, if you know what I'm say;) Hahaha....

My work center was right across the street from where you have to go to check in and hop on the bus to get outta there. So I hung out with my co-workers for the last couple of hours.  I couldn't remember if I had taken any pics of the place or not so I thought I would...

That was my desk on the left barely in the picture. Thats my parka on the couch just ready and raring to go...

 I wasn't going to take a picture of every row but here is one row of shelves out in the warehouse just off to the side from our work area.  That's where pretty much all the replacement parts for everything IT is kept. Toner, radio parts, fiber optic cables, tools, hard drives, network equipment all sorts of stuff...

`I didn't really think to take any pics from the bus or the drive out to the airfield but I know I had posted pics from inside the bus before so no big deal.  Plus I was more than a little excited to get on the plane and just get the journey home started. Fuel tanks in the back ground, obviously a wing in the foreground, me behind the camera, snow and ice strewn carelessly about, hahah...

  I didn't even notice when I took the pic but here is a "Fata Morgana Mirage" *** 

 Oh snap, and, we be rollin...

 There were only 31 people leaving so everyone pretty much got their own row. I love not having anyone next to me on a plane. It's like a little present gift wrapped in an empty seat!

 In-flight safety briefing. This girl is all different kinds of gorgeous, plus she was really nice, and had a cute little Aussie accent. I fell in love. I'm pretty sure the feelings where mutual but I didn't want to embarrass her by letting her know that I knew she was clearly smitten with me, so I just let it be... 

 That's all the buildings at the airfield. Obviously there is a control tower, there is also a small galley, bathrooms, firefighting equipment, and, I don't remember everything else, maybe some marshmallows somewhere...

AIRBORNE!  I made a little video of the take off you'll find below...

There is the runway in the center of the pic. Also it looks like that shiny icy looking area(seasonal) vs. the more matte looking area at the bottom(permanent) is the difference between the permanent ice shelf that's hundreds of feet thick, and the seasonal ice which was 5.5 feet this year. The ice was 8 feet thick when I first landed last year and I thought that seemed too thin to land a plane on.  Apparently NOT since it's 5.5 this year and we didn't break through and sink 3,000 feet to the most horrible death I could fathom!

McMurdo is right there at the left edge of the photo. So you can see why they use the "ice" runway every year. It's only about 10 minutes drive down that ice road to the airfield.  It's a little over an hour to get to Pegasus Field which is out on the permanent ice shelf and is used after early December when the ice starts to get too thin to land on safely.  1 or 2 flights might not be a big deal but it's a massive time saver when landing multiple flights a week and moving lots of truck loads of cargo in the summer...

That's a pretty nasty crack. Made me think about the fact that we just took off in this giant heavy plane from a sheeeeeeet of iceeeeeeee just a few minutes before...

Lots of cool stuff I had never seen from the air before...

More cool stuff...

The ice is really thinning out...

Looky looky! Open ocean...

The first vestige of unfrozen land in 8 months!

I'm back Christchurch, didja miss me?

Christchurch, or "cheech" as all the ice folks refer to it as, is really pretty from the sky. Well it's really pretty from the ground too, but since this picture is from the sky we'll say it's really pretty from the sky...

All lined up and coming in for the landing...

USAP...

More USAP!

This is out in front of the CDC, clothing distribution center where you get all your cold weather gear...

I went to the hotel, got up the next morning, went to the airport, and flew from Christchurch to Melbourne Australia. I didn't really think about taking pics that whole time. I was so concerned with just getting the hell home that I didn't even think of taking my camera out of the bag. Sorry about that.  Here is our Airbus A380 waiting for us to board for the longggg ass flight home.  So this is the only pic you get from Melbourne.  This plane is a freakin beast. You've got the whole double decker thing going on which is kinda cool. They have the same inflight tracking thing on the seat back video deal that the other Qantas plane I flew on had, which is sweet. This one also had a "sky cam" thing. There is a camera in the tail pointing forward. So from your seat back monitor you can watch the camera. So you see a view of the plane from the tail which is so damn cool! It was really cool for the take off and landing. Although it was a little unsettling on the take off because the pilot used every last inch of that damn runway before he pulled that baby into the air, crap! Super cool bonus points to Qantas for that thing...

Finally after 14.5 stinking hours flying I made it to LAX. Luckily, somehow I ended up not having someone next to me on this flight too, thank God!  I would have sat with a spike up my turd cutter on every other flight if only I had an empty seat next to me on this flight and it happened, the empty seat, not the spike thing. I got to LA at 6:55am and my flight to PHX wasn't until NOON! So close, but still so far away.  So I sat in the terminal for 2 weeks waiting for that 5 hours to go by so I could get on that last plane.

There we a couple of these in LAX, never seen them anywhere else. You can buy, iPads, iPods, Bose headphones, and all sorts of other things...

Home sweeeeeet homeeeee.  My long journey is mere moments from its conclusion and I can hardly sit still...

With my brother 2 seconds after loading my bags in the car. I'm hommmmeeee...

Heading out to the plane. I'm so excited I can hardly stand myself!

Thank you to the Aussies for coming to get us...

Just a moment before I started zooming in she was waving at me, hahaha. She's helping to load our baggage under that big beautiful plane...

We rollin, they hatin, patrollin they tryin to catch me ridin dirty....

As you can tell, I'm very excited to be leaving...

Time to flyyyyyyyyyyyyyyyy...

Look, unfrozen ocean, a shore line, crashing waves even. 

Landing on unfrozen ground.  I let it go a little while, sorry its a little long. I was just so mezmerized by being somewhere new. From the air I had already seen grass, trees, cars, animals, it was almost overwhelming so I wasn't thinking of turning the camera off I guess, hahaha.

Rolling past a big USAP building...

Getting on the bus for the ride over to Customs...

*** A Fata Morgana is most commonly seen in polar regions, especially over large sheets of ice which have a uniform low temperature. It can however be observed in almost any area. In polar regions the Fata Morgana phenomenon is observed on relatively cold days, however in deserts, over oceans, and over lakes, a Fata Morgana can be observed on hot days.
To generate the Fata Morgana phenomenon, the thermal inversion has to be strong enough that the curvature of the light rays within the inversion layer is stronger than the curvature of the Earth. Under these conditions, the rays bend and create arcs. An observer needs to be within or below an atmospheric duct in order to be able to see a Fata Morgana.



This is me, signing off, bitches!

Trying

So I thought I'd post an update to show you guys all the pics I took on my way out of the land of cold.  Apparently blogspot is being a little bitch right now though and isn't letting me upload any pics. I just thought I'd let ya know I hadn't forgotten about you all.

Buh-Bye from Antarctica

Well it's about that time.  It's time to sign off from Antarctica. It's been one of the most amazing experiences of my life, but I am more than ready to go home. It has gotten to just be "normal" to be here so it didn't seem like this day would ever come. It's finally started to feel real in the last week, and today is finally the day. The plane should be here in 4 hours and I'll be outtie. I can't wait to get home and see everyone I've missed for so long.

This will be my last post from the land of ice and penguins.  I'll still post a couple more updates, maybe from the hotel or airports to post any pics I take. After I get home I'll sign off for good. :)

In the meantime while I wait for my plane I thought I'd let you all read a list I put together of things I haven't done, seen or whatever in the last year...

been in an elevator
fired a gun
bought gas
paid rent
cooked for myself
been in a bank
saw a movie in a theater
had taco bell
had good pizza & wings
smelled the desert when it first starts to rain
saw any bugs
saw any cactus
saw a dog
sent or received a text message
smelled the inside of a Home Depot
been stuck in traffic, WOOHOO!
saw a cop car
driven a car(trucks don't count)
driven over 10 mph

saw someone under 18*
paid for food*
saw rain*
saw a plant growing out of the ground*

*I saw or did these things when I was back in Christchurch for R&R back in February, but not since then.

Bag Drag

So I just did my Bag Drag. When you're going to leave you have to take all of your baggage over to the cargo folks. They weight your checked bags separate and put them on a pallet. Then they weigh you in all your ECW gear and your carry on. I guess they've got to get the weights right, don't want that sucker falling out of the sky.  So I don't have much of anything anymore except all my electronic stuff in my backpack. I think I'll be more gentle on my carry-on than they will with my checked bags so I'll just carry it all.  I also passed my room inspection. So I'm just killing time until tomorrow. 1 more dinner and 1 more breakfast, mmmmm and maybe 1 more lunch, not sure exactly what time our "transport" time is yet.

I took this a couple days ago. It's weird to be able to look right at the sun, it probably gave me eye ball cancer or something...

 My bags packed and ready to gooooooooooooooooo...

 This was the line to bag drag.  I'm all done with that nonsense...

Next stop, getting the helllllll out of hereeeeeeeeee

recent pics

Found some pics I took recently that I never posted.

This was a couple weeks ago right after the sun started coming over the mountain.  I was really excited to see my shadow for some reason...

 Last weekend.  One of the favorite Saturday night past times is to get drunk and pass out in random places. This time it was the middle of the galley :)

 I just took this a few minutes ago.  There is a channel on TV that just scrolls flight information.  It's nice when flights are coming in but this channel just scrolled NOTHING all winter long, hahaha.  All I care about right now is that the 2 flights coming in Monday to get us are listed. WOOOOHOOOOOOOO

Went over to another building with my co-workers the other day. There wasn't really room in the cab of the truck so I rode in back and it was beautifulllllll outside...

For Avaition Fans

Here are a whole bunch of pics of various aircraft that work, or worked here. 

Speaking of aircraft, according to the airlift schedule the C-17's left McChord AFB in Washington St yesterday. They stopped and spent the night at Hickam AFB in Hawaii and they should be leaving later today for Christchurch. They get a day off, then do some flight briefing stuff on Sunday, then they'll be here Monday to get meeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeee! Woohoooooooo

This is a C-141, the pic looks old and they don't use these planes anymore...

 C-17...BEAST!

Buttons and knobs, neato...

I have no idea what that thing is they're moving, but it's pretty cool.  This is like the helicopter I got to fly in last summer...

A bunch of the LC-130. It's essentially the same C-130 the Air Force uses all over the world. The "L" means it's ski equipped.  It's really good at getting places the bigger C-17 can't, like The Pole, and field camps...

 Using  JATO(Jet Assisted Take Off) bottles to get airborne. They can us them to add a little jet power to get off the ground leaving a short runway or if they're really weighed down...

 I don't know if I ever mentioned this before.  Back in 1970 a C-121 crash landed at the airfield out on the permanent ice shelf.  80 passengers and no fatalities, but it destroyed the plane so they pushed it off to the side and left it. You can go visit the crash site and see it still. They named the airfield after the plane, Pegasus Airfield...