Two parts down One to go.

Well, I am 2/3 of the way back to the Ice. I have made it thorough Denver for orientation and training, and then onto Christchurch, NZ via Los Angles and Auckland. I believe that from the time we entered the airport in Denver and left the airport at Christchurch was about 23 hours total. Loads of fun.

So the trip had a few interesting events along the way. We flew from DEN to LAX on a 44 passenger regional jet. And the plane was over sold, so the airline was looking for volunteers to get off the plane. In the end two people stayed behind (none of the Ice people) to fly to LAX the next morning. When we got on the plane and settled in, I was looking forward and I thought that I saw a dogs head peek up over the seats. I looked again, and yes there was a Golden Retriever sitting in seat 3C. Come to find out it was a Disney dog that played Air Bud in the movies, so this dog made more money than I do. So in the end, the dog got to LAX on time and the two people got another night in Denver.

While in the BioSecurity area of the Auckland airport, I got to watch the food inspection Beagle at work. She ran down a person that went by here in a hurry and basically climbed up this persons back to smell their backpack. So, then the inspector looked through the pack and all was well. But it is amazing that a dog can catch a scent of something buried in a backpack from 15 feet away as it rushes by. Then I got my bags from the conveyor and was headed to the inspection line. The Beagle went over my bags on the cart, then jumped up to smell my backpack, and then hit on my carry on bag. The inspector asked to look at the bag, which had open M+M's and some other junk, but the dog smelled my apple that I had in my bag from LAX that I ate on the plane 6 hours earlier. Pretty cool.

Then when we landed in Christchurch we got earthquake humor from the flight attendant. She was explaining some of the important things about the city as we were taxiing from the runway to the gate. She said: "The city centere is 12km from the airport, at least it used to be, we think it is closer now." I guess you had to be there. We thought it was funny.

Now at noon I get to head to the CDC (Clothing Distrubution Centere) for ECW (Extreme Cold Weather) gear issue. Then sometime tomorrow we should depart for the Ice. We are hoping for a two day delay in Christchurch due to weather. That would give us two days extra in Chc, and then we would get into McMurdo on Sat. and our first full day on the Ice would be Sunday, a day off. We can hope. Also, for me, Paula is two days behind me, so if we get delayed she will catch up to me in Chc. Which would be nice.

That is all for now. I am going to walk around today and get photos of the remaining earthquake damage here in Chc. I will try to post as soon as I can when I get to McMurdo.