Countdown to liftoff!

Yesterday we had the first visitors of the season. These people fly to the South Pole, tromp around for an hour or so outside, come into the station store for souvenirs, then fly back to the coast. The rumor on-station is that they pay $30,000 apiece for this one-day trip. Since it was the first tourist group of the season, I'd guess more people on-station took pictures of them posing at the Pole than they themselves took.

Those tourists are just lucky they didn't show up during the South Pole rush hour.

There are (I hope) less than 48 hours before my plane to McMurdo arrives! It's Sunday here, and while it's technically a day off, I'm putting in a few hours' work today before going down to clean my room and start to pack.

I'll need to have my "checked" bag packed by 3PM tomorrow for "bag drag". Fortunately, my room is roughly 25 feet away from the "checkin" point (which is really just a sign next to one of the main station doors. The cargo people pick up all the bags, weigh them, then shrink-wrap them on a pallet so they're ready to load onto the plane.

There are only 4 people flying out on this plane and I don't think there's a LOT of returning cargo at this point in the season, so I'm anticipating an empty plane. Should be an interesting flight.