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Fate and the weather have conspired against me once again. The weather over New Zealand calls for hail and there is snowfall predicted over McMurdo Station all day today. Either one of these right have alone stopped our flight but together they led pretty quickly to another cancelled flight. So I'm

An End to the Required Training We finished up our required training today with a McMurdo Dry Valleys/Antarctic Specially Managed Areas training and Communications training. With our training completed we are now eligible to go to the field and collect samples. ##Preparing Field Equipment We also

Today I woke up with my bags packed at 5AM. By 8AM I was at the USAP terminal having my bags weighed and checking in for a boarding pass for the transport plane to McMurdo Station. After and orientation video, two delays, and lunch it was pretty clear that we would not be leaving today. Oddly enough

AM Training McMurdo is a place where they take training seriously. We started out this morning at 7:30 am with an introduction meeting to all of the heads of the logistics departments at McMurdo. The introductions were followed by Light Duty Vehicle Training, Fire Safety Training, Waste Management

Today I got to go to the United States Antarctic Program terminal to gear up. A process often referred to as the bag drag... because you drag a lot of bags. I was issued my extreme cold weather gear, which I will wear on the plane tomorrow and as needed while on the ice. Everything needs to be tried

Goodbye Friends We stayed the night in Cromwell with Dioni & Kasiano, a nice Fijian couple that offered up their home to us when the campsites were sold out. Both in New Zealand for work, we bonded over missing our families for New Years. Dioni and Kasiano were such gracious hosts. We hope to see

Setting Up the Lab Today was all about setting up our lab in the Crary Science and Engineering Center. Our soil ecosystems team has a lab reserved for our use during the time we are here at McMurdo. The lab is used by other researchers during the year so when we arrived we needed to set up the lab

I left my house in Saint Clair Shores around noon on Dec. 30, 2016. I finally arrived in my hotel in Chirstchurch, New Zealand at around 3 PM on Jan 1, 2017. There were some time zone shenanigans though. I crossed over the international dateline (and was thus cheated out of a New Years Eve.) But it

A trip to the CDC This morning we went to the Clothing Distribution Center (CDC) to get our Extreme Cold Weather Gear (ECW). The ECW starts out in two large bags which have to be emptied and everything needs to be tried on to ensure a proper fit and to test all of the zippers, velcro and pockets

We left the hotel at 6:45 this morning to catch our flight to McMurdo. Checking in for a flight to Antarctica is similar to checking in for any domestic or international flight with a couple of obvious differences. The first thing that is different is that you have to put on your ECW gear. Then you