A Major Award!

Remember that one time Landon went to Antarctica?

Yesterday, we received an official-looking envelope with a special surprise inside.

The Antarctica Service Medal is awarded to military and civilian personnel who serve for at least 15 days as part of an official NSF expedition. Landon and his research team were there for 38 days (and another 8 traveling). They camped on ice sheets about as far away from civilization as you can get, missed Thanksgiving and Christmas, and performed hard, manual labor in -30 degree temperatures.

Or you can just buy one on Ebay.

But it probably won't have your name on it. This one is legit! Walt and I are dang proud of our man.

And also very glad he is home (for now). I know you wanted to be an Air Force pilot, bud. But somehow, I think this is better. You found the perfect career for you, and for us. Keep up the good work!

Now. Seriously. No, really. I promise. This time I'm telling the truth - HOME!

Dec. 23rd Landon almost got a flight out of Antarctica. The plane turned around 10 minutes from the landing strip because of fog.
December 25th Christmas happened. It was a good day, we were very spoiled with generous gifts and I was happy to be with family. Landon was able to video chat with us for a couple of hours while we opened gifts and it was enjoyable to pretend he was there.
December 26th there was an earthquake in Christchurch, New Zealand, causing a lot of damage and limiting hotel space.
December 27th Landon FINALLY was able to board a plane and leave McMurdo. Unfortunately, we found out he couldn't leave right away because it's a requirement to stay overnight in New Zealand (something to do with visas?) before heading back to the states from Antarctica.
December 28th a huge storm rolled in over the East Coast of the US, turning holiday travel plans the world over into a super giant mess. No flights left New Zealand for the US that day.
December 29th Landon promised he was coming home. He boarded a flight for Aukland at 10:35 am, transferred to an overnight flight to LA, and flew to Dallas. There was huge snow storm in SLC that day, and many flights didn't get through, but we were finally blessed with a bit of luck, and Landon's plane was one of the few that landed. He then boarded a shuttle for Idaho. The snow had made the roads crazy bad, and it took an extra hour to get from SLC to Idaho Falls, where I eventually picked him up.

We spent several fun-filled days in Idaho with family, and finally, we are HOME.

Landon loved Antarctica and is excited about his research. He's never going back. I'm afraid he wouldn't get home.

Return to Civilization (Sort of)

Late Sunday night I got an awesome phone call. Landon has landed safely back at McMurdo Air Force base, and is officially done with the research portion of his trip. 

One of the best things about this news is that he now has regular access to the internet and a phone in his room. Daily communication: don't take it for granted.
With the daily communication comes something almost as exciting: new photos!! Enjoy a little peek into what the last few weeks have looked like way down south:

Landon! Proof he is really there, even though he prefers sending photos of seals to actual pictures of himself.

This is our new friend Clement (Clem for short). I haven't actually met him, but I have talked to him on the phone once or twice. It's been great that Landon and his "roommate" get along so well.

This is where they shot "The Nightmare Before Christmas." Ok, not really. But it could have been. :) This one's for you, Fred!

Landon with a 'Delta' (no, I have no idea what that means - I'm guessing it translates roughly to "really big extremely large no seriously huge truck" in MacMurdoese)

Clem (and Landon's feet) inside the "cooking tent."

Camp. In Landon's words: "I believe it's the first camp of the traverse . . . but they all kind of looked the same (flat, endless snow, four tents . . . you get the picture. No, really, you do . . .)"

This is their radar sled.

Landon in front of "Camp 3."

Whoa! Don't tell BYU about his beard and crazy long hair!

 Landon again: "Me in my helmet and rebreather . . . I can't decide if I look more like Top Gun or Darth Vader . . . . hmmm, decisions, decisions."

Introducing...L. Burgie, rap star extraordinare!

I just learned this today. The spots in the sky are called "sun dogs." Apparently when you're at the bottom of the world things look a lot like Tatooine. 

Landon being a scientist.

One of the temporary shelters they stayed in at WAIS.

For those of you who have been wondering/hoping/praying that by some miracle we'd see him by Christmas, it's not an option at this point. There isn't a plane leaving for New Zealand until the 27th, so that really is the earliest possible flight. We're very grateful that so far the weather there has been remarkably temperate and there have been no major delays, so he'll get home as planned (at 3pm on Monday!). Thank you for your well-wishes that he'd come home sooner, I know that the many prayers have been one reason the weather has been so mild.

We are tantalizingly close to the end of this thing, and I am not without hope that the next few days will speed by with holiday cheer taking place of grinchly self-pity. Thanks again for the love and support.

5 days.

Just a note

Quoted by Landon's thesis adviser, Dr. Summer Rupper:

Our first day of drilling took us about 14 hours - that's like going to school twice in one day. We loaded the sleds with the gear, drove by snow mobile out to our drilling site, dug and sampled the snow pit, drilled the ice cores, loaded the sled back up and headed back to camp. Upon returning to camp around 11:00 at night (well past my bedtime), after a very long day in temperatures around-30 F, Landon smiled and said "that was really fun".

Now that's the Landon that I know and love. :)

19 days.

Farewell to "Mac Town"

Excerpt from a Gmail chat held Tuesday:

Kylie: So, what did you do today? 
Landon: Got a core tray from the Carp Shop and ran over to the Cage in the BFC. Had lunch in the MCC 155 and climbed Obhill. 
Kylie: Great, now I have to learn a new language??

 "ObHill" AKA Observation Hill, McMurdo, Antarctica

Image taken from Travelpod.com

Landon has loved his time in McMurdo - "Mac Town" as he informs me the locals call it. However, he was more than ready to get out of there and get started on his research. They were blessed with good enough weather yesterday to fly out to WAIS (West Antarctic Ice Sheet) Divide. If the snow and wind had been too heavy, they would have had to wait till Monday, so we're glad they weren't delayed.

Pictures will be few and far between for the next couple of weeks, as they will be out on the ice sheet and have irregular and extremely slow access to the internet (although, if you ask me, the fact that they will have online access at all is astonishing). Everyone pray for continued good weather. We certainly don't need to drag this out any longer. :)

25 days.

Update

A few pictures from the last week in Antarctica:

Transportation is a challenge.

Under the sea ice - the glow is kelp.

A Weddell Seal - yet to see a penguin.

 

They have spent their time getting trained on safety and snowmobile repair, packing up equipment, labeling sample containers, sorting food, and having a blast. Tomorrow (Thursday for them), if the weather holds, they will be flying out on a C-130 plane to the WAIS divide camp, where they will begin collecting samples and cataloging the research  that Landon will spend the next 18 months studying and analyzing. Luckily, he'll do that part at home.

27 days.

McMurdo

Landon has landed in Antarctica! I'm relieved and really excited for him. It's been about 6 days since he left, and his adventure is finally properly getting started. Since I've never been there, I'll let him tell you about it:

Its been a crazy day and I'm pretty bushed. Clement and I both woke up around ten to six this morning . The shuttle to take us to the airport got there at six-thirty, and about eight of us from the Devon Bed and Breakfast all piled in and headed to the airport. Once we got into the CDC (that's the acronym for the USAP travel offices) we had to arrange our bags quick (I had two checked bags, one carry-on bag and one "boomerang bag" in case we had to turn back to Christchurch).

I pulled on my gigantic FDX boots and my sweet Carrhart snow pants, and then got in line to be checked in for the flight. After the New Zealand folks had cleared us, we wandered over to the Antarctic Centre for a bit of breakfast, and then went back to the CDC briefing room for a quick safety meeting before we took off.


The plane was AWESOME. It was a huge C-17, which is, I believe, the second largest cargo transport the U.S. Air Force has. 

Two thirds of the plane were filled with palettes of cargo bound for Antarctica, and the other third of it was filled with people. I think there were about fifty of us total. There were fold down seats along the side of the aircraft, and then they had two . . . basically large metal palettes clamped onto the floor, with twenty airliner seats on each palette.

 It was really cool to hear the huge engines thrum to life . . . they were incredibly loud, and I was grateful for the ear plugs they'd handed out when we were checked through. There were only two tiny windows in the whole plane, which made for an interesting flight. I read and slept the whole time, and the flight went really quick. It was interesting because without any windows, it was impossible to judge from my seat how high we were, so the actual landing process seemed to take forever. 

Roughly an hour before we landed I got up and peeked through one of the windows and saw nothing but flat sea ice in all directions. Then, about a half hour later, I looked again, and there were huge mountains covered in ice and snow, surrounded by flat, ice-covered sea. Very impressive and very desolate.

 Right after that they let anyone who wanted to climb up into the flight cabin. So of course I did. And that was really, really cool. The Air National Guard guys were all really cool, and they answered a bunch of my nerdy questions. The cockpit had quite a few windows and it gave this amazing view of Antarctica on all sides.

We landed around 3 or 4, I think (I didn't have my watch out), out on the sea ice. I guess the ice is getting pretty thin and in a few weeks they'll close down the sea runway and have an icebreaker come through and smash a path into the docks, so I felt pretty lucky that we got the whole sea-landing experience. Coming straight off the plane we could see Mt. Erebus in the distance, its top letting off a trail of smoke and steam, and to our right we could see McMurdo station. 

They had a big bus called "Ivan the Terra-bus" with huge tires almost taller than I am waiting for us, so we all squeezed into it and drove up to McMurdo Station, which is built on a long slope that runs down from some basalt hills to the sea. I was surprised at how large the station is . . . easily as big looking as St. Anthony, it seems like. Maybe not, but anyways, it caught me off guard how large it is.

The central building in McMurdo is a big blue metal building called the MCC or something like that. Its a cafeteria, library, computer lab (I'm sitting there right now), laundry-mat, convenience store and post office all rolled into one. Dinner was delicious.

But I digress. The first thing we did was have another briefing. This time by the NSF. Then we were all handed our room keys and sent to get our bags and our clean sheets and blankets and stuff. I was kind of bummed cause I'm in a separate dorm building from everyone else, but my room is nice, so I was mollified. I have a roommate, but I haven't met him yet, so hopefully we'll get along. We all met back here in the MCC for dinner at 6:30. The food is great . . . I had pork and some kind of soup and lots of steamed vegetables.

After dinner Clement and I hiked down to Hut Point, where the hut built by R.F. Scott back in 1902 for his expedition still stands. Apparently its been freeze dried by the cold or something, cause its in perfect condition. Its locked, but apparently you can go on a tour to see inside it, so hopefully I'll get to do that later.

As for wildlife, no penguins yet, but I did see some huge seals lazing about on the ice.

And as for temperature . . . it varies. Its a beautiful day (and yeah, its 9 pm but still full day outside) with no clouds in the sky. Its about 21 degrees F, and doesn't feel all that cold, until the wind picks up, and then it feels about as cold as I've ever felt in Rexburg. They've given us so much gear though, I don't think it'll matter...

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It's super exciting to see where he is. Only about 5,000 people are on the continent of Antarctica in the summertime, and Landon said that about 80% of those people have been there multiple times, so the actual number of people who have been to Antarctica in the world is much less than that. It really is a rare and awesome opportunity for him to study there. This is the 5th continent Landon has set foot on. He'll spend the next couple of weeks preparing for the field work they will be doing -- luckily, he'll have constant internet access during that time. We're hoping that soon Landon will be able to get a calling card that works from Antarctica, but in the meantime the emails he sends go far in saving my sanity. It's amazing the effect that simply knowing he's safe has on my day. 

35 days.