the arrival of laura

After a week of waiting, Laura finally flew into McMurdo Station early Friday morning. The weather broke for a short amount of time into some beautiful low-light cloud-streaked skies. And, for the first time since October 31st we flew three complete missions to the South Pole. Our entire office in Antarctic Terminal Operations cheered every time we had flight movement reports over the radio. Never mind that they all took off after 20:00 on November 8, and all returned the early morning of November 9; the first line took Laura back, the second was full of cargo to Pole, and the 3rd was the NBC Today Show crew. Watching that first plane roll onto the apron to drop her off, I sort of expected to see a big red ribbon around the aircraft! I had a huge grin on my face, too!

I was able to relive my shuttle days of last year, and drive for the flight's pick up. So, I saw Laura out at the Ice Runway with a gleaming, pearly-white smile on her face as she got off the plane. She did well. Her winter at the Pole didn't take her fun-loving teasing personality out of her.

She dropped her bags and got her room for the night and then came around and spent some time with me at work for the rest of the night. By the end of the shift, I knew the C-17 flight from Christchurch was not going to fly that day, so we would have a little extra time to hang out between our two crazy sleep schedules!

It was fun having her meet a few of my new friends and watching her catch up with some familiar faces, too. Plenty of people have mentioned that they ran into her and knew exactly who she was by her voice or similar face.

Friday morning, the two of us went to the Coffee House and sat next to Ann Curry who remembered that Laura was coming from Pole and told her how excited I had been to see her. We also had a good-sized chunk of time to spend catch up before she flew away again. I wish I had more time to introduce her to more of my new friends this year and enjoy some pleasant conversation with my sister, but I'll take what I had. She woke me up during a hard, NyQuil-induced sleep to say goodbye this afternoon. I could tell in her voice that she was happy that the C-17 finally made it on ice and she would be smelling things and being warm this evening!

On the down-side, I picked up The Crud; the official McMurdo medical description for anything resembling a cold. Since I stayed up so long in anticipation of Laura, and working at the Coffee House, I have also been extremely tired. The two do not go hand-in-hand! Now that flights are coming and going regularly, Laura has successfully redeployed, and the hype of NBC has left the continent, I think I'll be able to slip into a routine again!