Leaving McMurdo
Day 77.
Well, day 73 on the Ice, but
77 days since I left St. Louis. We were supposed to have left
yesterday but were delayed for one day due to bad weather. As we
leave, the TIGER payload still rests there on the Ice near Mawson Base
with plans for recovery still underway.
My last few nights in McMurdo were some of the best
times that I've had in years. My friend Kris Kuenning from the
Antarctic Sun organized a fantastic evening of lounge style piano featuring
me on piano with vocals by our friend Beth Bartel. Beth and I
practiced doing some parodies and other renditions of popular songs
from the early 90s (Mariah Carey, Celine Dion, Tori Amos, Nirvana,
Pearl Jam, and others), and had a blast playing and laughing with our
friends there at the Coffeehouse. It made me so happy to see so
many of my friends out to listen and sing along, it was truly a night
that I will never forget.
And so I leave a bit of my heart in McMurdo as I sit
here and write this last journal entry on a C-141 high above the
extreme South Pacific. It's a strange little town with a wide
variety of people, and to say the least, it affords people experiences
in life that are truly like none other. And in the end, an
amazing amount of good scientific research is done every year.
It's a tiny little town, on the remotest continent on the earth, whose
sole existence stems from the pursuit of scientific knowledge.
And there you'll find some of the most talented and hard-working
people in the world, scientists and otherwise, who understand the
importance of bringing out the
art and beauty in the people and environment around them. And in
the end, we'll always have a home in McMurdo.
