Days of Delays

I guess we shouldn’t be that surprised by now that we are still in McMurdo. A good thing we have had lots of practice in waiting, as Emilie put it earlier. Our first delay on the 31st was due to snowy weather in McMurdo. The C-17 didn’t even take off for McMurdo and we knew by 7:00 am that we would have the day off. We all spent the day relaxing, reading, and catching up on emails/work. Yesterday though, was quite a different delay.

We awoke to clear skies and hearts full of hope.  Alex, Brian, and I said our goodbyes to Johnny at lunch and boarded our transport vehicle with 97 people. An hour later we arrived at Phoenix Airfield, watched the C-17 arrive, and thought we were in the clear… cue eight hours of waiting in a “terminal” aka room stuffed with 100 warm, hungry people. After only two hours of waiting, I had already wolfed down the pizza I brought from the galley as a flight snack, so I was beyond thankful that McMurdo sent us some food to eat while we waited. Unfortunately though, the mechanical issue the crew was trying to fix couldn’t get resolved and around 10:30 pm we began our journey back to McMurdo to arrive back in our dorms around midnight. What a long day.

For better or worse, today is Sunday.  At McMurdo this means that it isn’t a work day so the plane won’t be getting fixed today. The silver lining is that Sunday Brunch is the best meal at McMurdo so at least we have that going for us. We don’t have a departure date yet, but we do need pick up our checked bags.  I’m assuming this means a couple more days here at least. Also our chaotic delay pushes Johnny’s departure date back as well, since he was initially scheduled to be off ice tomorrow.

-Posted by Lauren, who will be rooting on the Chiefs from McMurdo.