It is currently 9:00am on Thursday, December 4th. We were supposed to be on our way home to Denver right now, but instead find ourselves still sitting in McMurdo with no sign of getting out any time soon.
The Condition 1 storm that ripped through the Ross Island vicinity left quite a mess in its wake. No flights have come in or out since Saturday. The fleet ops crews were extra busy yesterday, trying to get the runway cleared, which is a monumental task. There are pictures of the runway after the storm that show snow drifts up and over the buildings on the flight line. Combine those drifts with a 3-mile road just to get to the runway, and then 2 miles of road at least 300 feet wide for each runway (times 2), plus the taxiway and parking/loading areas, and that’s a whole lot of snow to clear.
This morning started out optimistically, as the skies are clear, the winds are calm, and the temps are comfortable. Today was the day that the Kiwi flight KZM-007 would be arriving, which means we’d be on it going north tomorrow morning. Tonight we would bag drag, toast McMurdo one last time, and be on our way home in the morning. However, upon getting to work this morning I checked the flight schedules and saw that KZM-007 has been delayed yet another 24 hours due to “communications problems.”
This means that the earliest they’ll arrive will be tomorrow afternoon, assuming the weather holds and they fix whatever problems they’re having. That would put us on the Saturday morning flight north to Christchurch. However, once we arrive in CHC there’s another unknown – we’ve been told that Qantas doesn’t fly from Auckland to LAX on Sundays, and that the Monday flight is already full. I checked Qantas.com, and it appears as though they do, in fact, fly on Sunday, but that economy class is already booked. So once we arrive in CHC, who knows how long it will take to get a spot on a flight back to the US. Hopefully some of those seats are being held for USAP participants, I have no idea at this point.
Tuesday night after the storm had ripped through we went bowling again with Michael Davis. He’s in the bowling league down here and we’ve been his teammates for two of his games. Tuesday we were on fire, combining for a team score of 536 (that’s pretty good on the oldest AMF lane in the world, complete with rolling, pitted lanes and manual pin setters). Josh showed us all up by scoring 183. I didn’t do too badly, getting 114 and no gutter balls. If I can break 100 and not get a gutter ball I consider it a good game.
Last night we went to Gallagher’s for some foosball with Mr. Davis and afterwards we walked into the midnight sun for the first time in several days. The sun had finally broken through and the clouds were diminishing. We stood in the road looking down on the runway clearing efforts for a while when a grantee walked up to us and said, “All I can think of right now is ‘Sometimes the light’s all shining on me…’”, in reference to “Truckin’” by the Grateful Dead. I thought that was pretty fitting given the past few days: “Sometimes the light’s all shining on me; other times I can barely see [Condition 1 reference there], lately it occurs to me, what a long strange trip it’s been.”
Ain’t that the truth.
Runway-clearing effort photos in the photo album. Also, today is the 4th of December here in McMurdo, I realize it's only the 3rd back home, but all the same, happy birthday to my twin nephews, Ethan and Isaac, and their grandpa (my father-in-law), Mark. I wish I could be there to help celebrate.
