Madison to South Pole in pictures

I left from Madison at around 12:30PM December 31

I hung out in Chicago for an hour and a half.

I had a 6 hour layover in Los Angeles and left at around 11:30PM PST December 31 (but since it was already New Year's Day in Madison, I got to wish my wife and daughter a Happy New Year)

I blearily made my way through the Auckland, NZ airport. It took quite a while to get boarding passes for the connecting flight and I would have missed the flight if there hadn't been aftershocks in Christchurch the previous night.

I forgot to take a picture of the "departure lounge" in Christchurch, but here's an old photo.

This was the "departure lounge" in McMurdo when they thought we were going to get right on the plane, but the plane had mechanical problems...

So we hung out here for about an hour before we finally boarded the plane and flew to...

The South Pole! This is actually a shot from my first trip. I've been out to the Pole to help hold up flags made by several schools at the Pole marker, but I haven't yet taken this year's "hero shot".