Leaving, on a Jet Plane.......................... (60's Ditty)

Yup, Almost gone!

Gonna be a sad day for sure, but the actual start of this "Trek" to the most inhospitable place on earth. Finished packing last night at about 11PM. Started, pretty much at 5PM with an hour break to eat with Kim and the kids. Everything is in two sea-bags that are only 75% full each, weigh about 35 Lbs. Know I am forgetting something (kitchen sink maybe). Left a box of extras to be shipped down at the earliest time possible. Won't get anything until the 2nd - 3rd week in October though. Even if Kim shipped it tomorrow. Just no way anyone can start shipping stuff to us via. mail yet. Our supply ship will be in McMurdo in Jan. 2011 Once a year, after the Icebreakers can cut a channel. Then they will load up all the previous years trash and garbage to be shipped back to Port Hueneme CA. (Think GREEN Baby!). This will total about 200,000 tons from what I understand.

One of the places I want to go tour down in McMurdo is the sewage treatment plant and the waste facility. From what I hear they are pretty interesting. People have to sort the trash they throw out in to 20+ seperate bins that go to the waste disposal location. They used to have landfills in Antarctica. With the Antarctic treaty of 1978 they started cleaning all that up and shipped all of what they could gather up off the continent. Took over 20 years from my understanding too. Still not all gone though. I guess there are scars on the terrain where the landfills were.
The sewage treatment plant is supposed to be cutting edge. Think about it..... It's COLD down there, DAMNED COLD! Up here in the states we have outside sewage treatment plants where bacteria helps break down the raw sewage (pretty quickly) and then is either used for irrigation, or returned to locations in a pretty safe medium so you don't have disease, much smell (unless the plant is out of whak), and little impact on the enviornment (least here in most locations in the US).
Down there everything is frozen 95% of the time. It's so cold the ocean freezes to 50' - 200' in spots. To keep any of the product of the process unfrozen and able to be discharged into the sea, would take a bit of engineering and extra work. They can support up to 2,500 people there at McMurdo with no impact to the environment (yea, all the Greenpeace groups would assault the beaches and probably burn the place to the ground) except a monitored (heavily) sludge. Like I said, I want to see this marvel of engineering.

4 hours left here at home until I head out. Kids getting ready for school, oblivious of course. Right now they don't understand that "Dad" is leaving for a long time. I think it will sink in after a couple of weeks as they are pretty independent. Kissed them bith good-night last night for the last time in 7 months. They actually asked for it.

About all for now, will try to get on in Christchurch to complain about the layovers, the long, boring flights, and lack of sleep. I heard 150 of us are on the same plane down there. Should be interesting......

Hasta luego!!!