Moment 10
I had a bit of an adventure on my third trip down to Antarctica. I was flying in January instead of the normal October time frame, so it was snowing in Denver. My flight took off a couple of hours late. I arrived in Los Angeles just a few minutes before my connecting flight was supposed to take off. I had made this connection before so I knew roughly which gate it would leave from. I made a run for it, but when I arrived there was no one there. All the gates were empty, none had anyone working at them. I went to the departures board, but the flight was no longer on it. I went back to the gate and there was someone working there. I was at the right gate and the plane had not taken off yet, but they had already disconnected the jet-way. The attendant went out of his way to reconnect the jet-way and get me on the plane. I had to walk the entire length of the plane (747) with everyone staring at me as my seat was in the last row of the plane. Wow, is that a long plane. My bags could not run as fast as I could so they did not make the connection with me. I arrived in Christchurch on a Saturday around noon and flew down to McMurdo the next morning. There was a distinguished visitor (DV) on the flight. I think he was a congressman. Soon after we took to the air the flight crew discovered a loose panel, so we turned around and landed. They fixed the problem, but then we had to refuel. The end result was that we wasted two hours, which meant that I missed dinner in McMurdo. The only food for the day was the airplane boxed lunch. My bags arrived in Christchurch while I was flying to McMurdo. There was not another flight to McMurdo for two days, so I was without my luggage for a total of about four days. Fortunately I had planned ahead and had my toiletries and a change of underwear, socks and a shirt in my carry-on bag. It took me a total of 57 hours from when I left my house until I was in McMurdo. I think that might be a record. Of those 57 hours 24 were spent flying, 1.5 driving, 13.5 waiting in airports, and 18 for sleep and myself.
Looking down on
McMurdo from Observation Hill