Ice Flight

We were up and at 'em early on Saturday morning and had weighed in and got on the C17 just as the sun was coming up.

Here is me on my second Ice flight:
I took a nap, listened to some music and played some electronic sudoku and the 5 hours went pretty fast. About 3 hours in we were able to take a look out the windows and see some big blank nothingness:
Even up to the last second I thought we might boomerang back since we did the runway approach twice, but soon enough we touched ground and I realized that I was actually going to have to WORK on Monday. I think I had heard too many great stories about being delayed for 12-16 days that I was thinking it must be in the mix for me. They took awhile to let us out, so everyone was milling around in the plane:

We hopped on the shuttles and started driving into town. I still can't believe they land those loaded planes on ice:

Here is the view of McMurdo from the runway. Looks kind of nice when you see it from a mile away and covered with snow!:

I was having second thoughts once we got to town and got to my room. But after hanging out with friends on Saturday night I was still excited for this season. Plus, after Sunday brunch, a long nap and basketball yesterday, I felt all settled in again.

Work today was great. While a lot of departments had all kinds of training and safety meetings, I just started where I left off from the office in Denver and then had a 'turnover' this afternoon from the winter facilities engineer.

I am moving into a new room tonight. On Saturday, they put me in a dorm with a real small room again, and so I decided to put my foot down, since I had the 'housing points' to do so, and asked for an upgrade. Now I'm in 211, a mid-range dorm which has pretty big rooms, and a lot of my friends from last year are living there. My roommate will come on a flight on the 13th or 16th.