losing laura

Today was a sad day. After spending a brief evening with Laura last night (picture at left), I woke up early for work and sat down with her for a last 10 minutes together at breakfast. Nothing like snarfing oatmeal and fruit and saying good-bye when I am still trying to comprehend “morning” and focusing on getting to work on time!

I went to work as the Willie Field Taxi this morning. Basically, this means I sit in a van until lunch and bring flight crew from the Air National Guard from our little Willie Town to the ramp where their aircraft are staged. This morning, I brought the crew for Laura’s South Pole flight, P042, all the way from McMurdo to the airfield (a 7 mile commute at 25 mph) and buttered them up real good so that I could get a good seat for her in the plane. As it turns out, they offered up a spot on the flight deck. I casually said, “Yea, I think she’d really like that!”

I also made sure she was on the best LC-130 that the Guard has to offer. It was Skier 90 (these planes land and take off on skies, rather than tires). This is one of the newest planes down here and the plane is heated; the best of the fleet of six down here. Actually, I have no say on what plane they fly; even the flight crew is at the mercy of “higher ups.”

In any case, I watched her transport to the plane and her take off, and later heard an announcement from MacOps over the radio that she had safely arrived at the South Pole.

So, Laura will be the facilities engineer down at the South Pole Station until next November. She will be back for Christmas and a week in January for R&R.