Our Training has Ended
I'm sitting at the Fairbanks International Airport waiting for my short flight home (it's 45 minutes to Anchorage). A large bank of windows facing south (and a bit east) loom in front of me - a welcome reprieve from the windowless conference room that has been home for the past week. It seems odd and a bit sad to be sitting at a table with my computer and no one else around. All week about 20 of us have been communing around a horseshoe of tables, listening to talks, asking questions, working on our computers. To do it alone now doesn't seem right.
A smowplow team of five trucks is working on the main runway since about 1/2" of snow has fallen this morning. I'd think that would be a small enough amount that they could ignore it. Put it this way: I can't actually see that they are plowing anything off the runway. An Alaska Airlines jet just taxied away from the terminal so maybe they are just sprucing up the runway for that plane. With the temperature currently at 5ºF the snow that has fallen is very dry. The jet exhaust blast could probably clear it off more effectively than the plows. But I suppose it's not good form to clear a runway of snow as you are taking off...
The sun filters through a uniform layer of stratus - the snow has stopped now and these clouds don't hold much promise for more.
With about 6 weeks to go before I leave for Greenland I feel bit overwhelmed. I have a million things that I need to do before then. [That plane just took off and left a snow vapor trail behind it as it did so - snowplowing the easy way.] I am inspired by the people I have met this week. All are amazing teachers or researchers who are passionate about educating the public about polar science. Count me among them now. It would be really fun to be able to sit together as a group in 18 months and tell stories from our trips. But that probably won't happen. Nonetheless, I look forward to the challenges and surprises that await ahead.
Since I will be the first teacher out this spring I will do my best to post journal entries with some regularity, but it most surely won't be every day. For now I look forward to going home, sleeping in my own bed, and welcoming my family back from their trip to Maui. They probably have a few stories to tell as well.