Day 9-October 19th '11

Day 9- October 19^th ‘11

Today I’m riding along with Talia on a “crew tour”.

When a C-17 is scheduled in for a landing the Air Force/ National Guard Commanding Officer emails ahead of time and asks if a certain number of the crew can tour the town. So Air Services (me/us) schedule a van from Shuttles and when the plane is on final approach, we go to the Ice Runway and pick up the few military crews taking the tour.

The tour consists of driving by significant buildings, pointing out historical sites and answering questions about town life. We stop at the McMurdo sign overlooking the Discovery Hut while they take pictures or have us take pictures of them. Pictures like this are called the “Hero Shot”. I’ve heard tell of some people who do these pix in little to no clothing. These are then called the “Super Hero Shot”. Luckily these guys weren’t into that today on this very freezing cold day with cutting wind.

After the pictures we take them to the store, which we have prearranged to be open for them to have the store to themselves to shop. It’s like having a private shopping spree, where we get asked what we would like if we were one of their wives, girlfriends or kids.

When shopping is done, we take them back to the runway and their plane that has been unloaded, reloaded and fueled. At this time they will ask for their passports to be stamped.

In actuality, it isn’t an official stamp. Only Thailand has shown any displeasure about someone’s passport having this stamp that is simply the post office’s stamp cancelling stamp. But everyone wants it to show them having been on this continent. So I stamped the crew’s that were in the van and the pilot ( captain) tells me that there are other crew still on board that would like to be stamped also. So he invites me aboard the C-17 to stamp the rest of the crew’s passports. The captain also asked if he could take my picture with my camera with the plane in the background. Super nice guy.

So I went into this hulking cargo plane and stamped with pleasure, passports of some of our finest military personnel. Though I’m not a customs agent or official immigration officer, I was happy to do that for them.

It was a great day!

Day 6- October 16 '11 Part 1

Day 6 – Oct 16’11

ICE day! Shuttles picked us up at 445a for CDC. The manifest had me going down in an Airbus and not the C17. I was a little disappointed, but a few people said that the C17 had no windows so if it was a nice day, you wouldn’t be able to see Antarctica from the air.

Everyone was putting on their ECW gear, double checking checked vs carryon and taking all their belongings next door to the US Air Force terminal to check in. Luggage carts were few and far between, so you just had to wait your turn if you didn’t want to schlep all your bags piece by piece.

I am exhausted physically and mentally.  I was more overwhelmed and sadder. I needed my husband with me and I was continuously asking myself,  ‘‘What the hell am I doing? What have I gotten myself into?” But I was excited too. I was going to ANTARCTICA!

Again so hot hurrying, running around, making sure you got it all right all while wearing ECW gear. Luckily we were allowed to take off what we wanted to after check in, while awaiting the preflight briefing. Some of us had gotten breakfast vouchers to take to the Antarctica Headquarters next to CDC. Even though I paid for a voucher, the only thing I could stomach was a little juice and coffee. I was feeling miserable actually.

Back at the terminal, we had our briefing, and then lined up for security screening.  After being screened, we crammed onto a bus to take us the airfield. At the airfield, before we got off the bus, we were instructed that when we got on the jet, we were to go to back of the plane and fill all seats available. They claim this was for trim purposes when taking off, but I surmise it was to prevent bloodshed over the 1^st class seats.

Off the bus we picked up a sack lunch and a bottle of water, climbed the stairs and headed to the back of the jet. They said that once the seatbelt sign went off, we could make our way to the front to the first class seats and fill them. God has been lining everything out for me. First the Airbus jet, not the C17, then an aisle seat close to the 1^st class threshold. The seatbelt sign went off and I sat in the last seat available.

I was sitting next to a Dr. Alexis Ipsen from Washington DC. She and her husband come down every year. I forgot what her study was, but she was very informative and helpful and interesting.

The flight was only 4 hours long. The pilot’s had an open cockpit and invited anybody to come up and take in the view from up there and take pix if we wanted. They were very cool.

When we got to the continent of Antarctica, I was in complete awe of the beauty I saw. I thanked God for a clear, sunny day and a flight on a transport with windows. Soon we were being asked to get into our ECW because we were descending. Even the stewardesses had cute little jumpsuit ECW to put on.