Leaving Station and Being Home

here's the link to my last ice photos for now...

http://flickr.com/photos/cragbetty/sets/72157607709360004/

Yes, the post is a little late. oh well.... it's not like i have a working computer or time to write some sort of post...especially if i had a little too much to drink the night before and got sick in the middle of the night. oh well. what can you do. so this post is written as a post mortem and a little bit as a reflection of the life i had at palmer station. hmmm.....

leaving station was hard. it was the life i knew for the past 2.5 months. the people i lived, worked, ate, played, cried, laughed, hung out, etc. with. they are a special family that was created because of where i was. time spent on station is definitely something i will never forget. friends i've made there will always be welcomed in my home.

the last day on station was marked with the obvious switch of stuff. all our bags were moved onto the boat in the afternoon. it was pretty final. once the bags were on board the boat, it was set. i'm leaving. when the boat came on 18th of sept, it brought the summer staff. it was a change of the season and a change of the guard. the science will be different, the staff are also different. there are some that are staying til end of october, and few that are staying til the end of the summer. hopefully, i'll see them in the future, either in the program (usap) or out in the real world.

PQ...getting ready to jump

leaving station also marked 4-5 days of a boat ride that may or may not make me seasick. sure enough, i was sea sick for 2 days. not throwing up kind....just the unstable kind. didn't eat much though. i think that's totally fine. many folks disappeared for the couple of day the seas got a little rough. for the most part it was uneventful and filled with movies. when there was sunshine, i would try to make it out on deck as often as possible....

spray from the boat.

Heading into the Straights of Magellan, we were greeting by the awesome dolphins (commersons) and protected waters.

commerson dolphins, playing in the ship's wake

Good times and sad times were had in Punta Arenas. folks parted ways over the course of the next few days. Flying home was a bit surreal. being home is definitely surreal. thing like the high winds (20-30 mph gusts) don't phaze me. the smell of the trees are "new" to me. animals other than penguins, birds, etc. are a wonderful sight to see. in a way, i don't mind not having snow and ice around, but then again winter is coming soon to the mountains of tahoe. my year of neversummer continues.

i do miss them. all of them. all those who made my life at Palmer an adventure and awesome. hopefully our paths will cross in the furture, but for now....there's always email.

as for this blog, i'll probably be posting on my other one for now....mini TRs of my attempts to telemark. :D we'll see how that goes.