Update 1: Off we go!

[Paul Summers]

Hello All! 

It's been a busy week here, but Danny and I are safely waiting at the gate for our flight to NZ now. We started the day with some last second assembly and testing of our field equipment, and 4 hours before we left I realized my debit card had expired back in April. Thankfully my bank on campus was able to print me a new one in under 20 minutes (but you should definitely tell your bank when you move).

Pictured here is a bit of the chaos that went into getting our field equipment ready. Anna and Thomas both made HUGE contributions of their time to get us prepared, and Danny is on the right of the photo, you'll hear about him a lot as I'm traveling with him and helping with his radar experiments this year. The little colored boxes are radar receivers, and slightly larger yellow boxes are the transmitters, you can see one open by Danny below. The big white boxes are antennae, I am not sure why they are white, but they blend in well on snow. The red U-Line collapsible wagon has also been an indispensable team member, so big shout out to the wagon.  

This is a photo of Danny and I testing the radar on a field on campus, our 'glacier' analogue at home. It was 75F in the sun, a bit different than where we are headed! Anna was kind enough to drive us all to the airport, and despite what seemed like 4 major accidents we still made it to the airport in time for sunset, very important for dramatic send off pics.

The $16 was well spent on 2 luggage carts (they are free in NZ, thank goodness) as we have over 400 pounds (ahem 180 kg) of equipment, personal and scientific. We will be issued about 15 pounds more of extreme cold weather gear in NZ, this definitely is not an 'Ultralight' trip like the summer backpacking trips I'm used to. After about 45 minutes to check in and pay for our bags due to a combination of the odd circumstances of our trip and a computer glitch, we amazingly breezed through security. We both are carrying a number of large lead acid (non-spillable) batteries, 2 laptops each, and odd looking radar equipment that often gets 'flagged' for extra screening, but I guess SFO has seen it all before and waved us through. Thanks SFO!

Our flight is overnight so I hope to catch some sleep, and when we land in NZ it will oddly be Nov 3rd thanks to the international dateline. I guess after making full use of all 31 days of Oct, it's only fair NZ steals Nov 2nd from us. We land in Auckland, but then connect to Christchurch, our final destination. Once there, we get tested for COVID, are issued our extreme cold weather gear (ECW) and then do a few online training sessions. ECW makes for some fun photos, so hopefully I'll have another update after that. 

It's a bit surreal to be setting off. After months of preparation, the last few weeks really flew by and today definitely surprised me. I'm excited to have the opportunity to finish this multi-year project, and hopefully my PhD, on a high note with a successful season. At the same time I am sad to be away from friends and family for so long. I feel very thankful that I was able to see so many of you this month, and I wish I'd had time to say a proper goodbye to you all. It has brought me great joy to see so many of you sign on to these updates, and I hope you enjoy reading them as much as I enjoy writing them. 

Sending you all the best as I fly off into tomorrow, and as they say in NZ:

Kia Ora

-Paul