Arrival In A New World

“Death is more universal than life; everyone dies but not everyone lives.”

-Alan Sachs

Walking out of the plane is quite the spectacle! The sky is blue and there is white as far as the eye can see. With the slight breeze the wind was picking up snow off the ground and whipping it around giving the illusion of a painter brushing white strokes of paint in front of you. Assisted by the sudden rush of cold air into my lungs made it was truly breath-taking!

In the distance there were two groups of people standing to greet us in front of two very large vehicles. One vehicle is known as "Ivan The Terrabus." He is a large red and white personnel vehicle that looks like something out of an army movie crossed with a Mars Land-rover. Unfortunately, I did not have the honor of climbing aboard Ivan. I was sent to Ivan's little brother (his name escapes me) and boarded with a handful of other people. The inside held nothing but two bench seats lining the walls of the vehicle and a ghetto-rigged heater that worked wonderfully.

Once we were secure in the back of the vehicle we began the last leg of the journey to reach McMurdo Station. Traveling from Pegasus Runway to McMurdo Station takes about an hour or so and feels like an eternity. Nerves were worn on the faces of the newbies including myself. The veterans coolly told us stories of previous seasons' shenanigans

and moments of wonderment on the ice. The windows were frosted over thick with ice obscuring any possible vision of our journey from within the back of the vehicle. Some managed to scrape tiny peep-holes in the frost and veterans pointed to various mountains and areas of interest. From where I sat I could not see out of any of these pockets of sight and promised myself I would see them all up close and in person.

Once the vehicle came to a complete stop something shot up from the base of my spine all the way to my head. It was a feeling of anxiety mixed with panic, geographic understanding, flashbacks, and sprinkled with a wide variety of nervousness. This was the first time I would see McMurdo Station and step into the new world I've been looking forward to for the past 8 months...