Arrival

We arrived in Christchurch, NZ, and did what many winfly participants do...wait.  Those of us who got to wait were the lucky ones, because 120 folks hopped on a plane on Monday, August 20, flew 5 hours to McMurdo where they couldn’t land and flew back to New Zealand - a 10-hour flight to nowhere on a C17.  This is called a boomerang, and they really need to come up with a more appropriate title that doesn’t sound so fun.  About 20 of us were spared that particular agony and spent our time visiting with our USAP colleagues in Christchurch. 

Each day our flight was cancelled we could spend another day shopping for freshies for the winter-overs, visiting local mineral springs, or exploring the ruined city center slowly recovering from the 2010 earthquake.  On Thursday, September 23, we all flew to McMurdo, and landed in the dark.

It was so different from all of the bright sunlight arrival photos I’ve seen from Reinhart.  We stepped off the plane into the cold night, blinded by the runway floodlights.  The scene of everyone walking towards the lights of the oversized vehicles…it just seemed like we should be boarding alien ships.  Our ride on Ivan the Terrabus did not involve looking out the windows at the distant landscape but straining for a glimpse of anything in the dim lights from the deltas and terrabus.    

The arrival at station is already a blur.  We came in to Building 155, bumbled around in our ultra padded state until we found the coatroom, picked up our room keys, snacked, found our bags, and then set out to find our housing.  My place is Building 207, room 324. It was a little musty and colorless, but it is amazing how a room becomes home in just a few days.

(Photo credit: Holly Troy)