I'll give a brief rundown on what we have been up to for the past few months:
We left the ice on February 24 aboard an air force C-17 cargo plane. If I could fly everywhere in one of those I would. Best way to fly (except maybe on an Emirate's Air flight, holy cow they know luxury and comfort). We stayed in New Zealand hiking and driving around the South island for about a month. (Shout out to BigFoot Jim and Dona, friends from the PCT, who were in Christchurch when we were!) We had planned to hike the Te Araroa Trail however things did not pan out. We realized this trail would take us a bit longer to hike than we had anticipated and we would not have the time to finish the entire length of it before planned events in the States. We adjusted our plans and began a sight seeing road trip around the South island. Glaciers, mountains, farms, cities, birds, glow worms....New Zealand is a country bathed in beauty. I'm lucky to have spent time there and I am looking forward to being able to spend more time there one day.
After a month there we took a marathon of flights back to the good ole' US of A. Our destination was Atlanta, Georgia. Two friends of ours, Short Trip and Breathless (Bill and Margaret), picked us up at the airport and treated us to some of the best hospitality we could hope for. They are amongst the kindest souls I have been fortunate enough to meet on my travels. They made us feel at home and comfortable in their home, giving us a much needed chance to rest and unwind after a long journey around the world.
After spending a couple of days with them we began our trek of the Appalachian Trail. This deserves it's own post (several, actually) and I'll have to get on that at some point. We traveled about 1400 miles (Georgia to New York) of this trail before the six legged, blood sucking devils of the woods (ticks) introduced the two of us to their best friend Lyme Disease. We struggled to realize we were sick because both of us were hit at the same time. After a couple weeks of struggling and seeing our daily mileage plummet we came to the conclusion that something was wrong and we got off trail to find out and rest. The recovery took much longer than expected (I was still feeling effects after a couple of months) and so we will return to the AT eventually and finish what we started. A shoutout to our friends that visited us along the AT and their awesome trail magic: Rattler, Jason Hedrick, Nicole and Nathaniel, and Flashy Pants!
Through out the summer we had the great pleasure of spending time with Carolyn's friends and family celebrating a number of weddings. Her older sister, Allison was married to Dave with a beautiful ceremony at the end of July. Carolyn's friends Kate and Scott were married in September and Nicole and Mike were married in October. It was a summer filled with wedding festivities!
Time was spent with my family as well. We were able to celebrate Jason's (my older brother) graduation from college with his elementary education degree and a start on a new career path. My friend TJ began a new and exciting part of life becoming a home owner for the first time and our friends Dan and Sheri celebrated the first birthday of their beautiful baby, Annalise. I was able to spend a lot of time with the other lady in my life, Cascade! Walks, running in fields, and chasing around Bradley the cat together helped revitalize the both of us.
Both of our families gave us support and love throughout the summer that we are both beyond grateful for. Thank you to all!
Currently we are back at McMurdo Station, Antarctica!!! It wasn't a straight forward trip here but we're back and thankful to have our jobs. We had been offered these jobs early in the summer and were excited for the opportunity to return to the ice. After our bout with Lyme Disease we became nervous about passing the physical exam process to get here. We both passed then proceeded to find out we had lost our jobs due to the government shutdown! We were lucky in that we were informed before we began our travels to Christchurch, New Zealand. A number of our friends had traveled to New Zealand before finding out and were stuck abroad with no jobs for a period of time. Some people even traveled to New Zealand, went back home then got the jobs back after the shutdown ended and traveled back to New Zealand! Anyway, the shutdown ended and the NSF began funding the Antarctic program again. We got calls and flew out of the country in about 48 hours time.
Things here at McMurdo are great! The beauty of this place never fails to inspire and the community is even greater than we remembered. We have a wonderful crew this year and are beyond excited to spend an entire year on ice!
We hope everyone has had an incredible summer/autumn and we look forward to sharing our second season on ice with you all!!!
PS - Jason Hedrick. That's all.
