Getting ready to go
2026-02-22 - Reading time: 2 minutes
I've always wanted to do one of these "flat pack" pictures and this seems an apt time.
Notable callouts you might see:
- Sleeping bag is for sleeping on Antarctica (instead of the boat) under the open sky.
- Red crocs: Needed to protect the drysuits we'll be wearing while kayaking. I've never owned a pair of crocs (much to Emily's consternation) and I figured I'd go bold here. Though Auri quickly pointed out my resemblance to Ronald McDonald...
- Laptop: both for writing blog post, and a little bit of work that I promised my boss I would try to do over StarLink (time sensitive performance review things)
- Kindle: this reminds me, I should do a post on all the books I've got loaded up.
Flying out tomorrow morning. TSA is apparently shutting down PreCheck and Global Entry according to the news, so I plan to get to the airport a bit earlier than normal for my flight at 6:45a. Then to Houston, a 7 hour layover, then a red-eye to Santiago, Chile.
In Chile, I'm meeting up with Mike (will introduce folks in a follow-up post) for a quick tour around the city during our 7 hour layover. Then a late night flight to Punta Arenas, Argentina.
Then a flight over to Antarctica as a group.
So it'll be a long first day, something like 36+ hours from (home) bed to (hotel) bed.
But I've got a cervical neck brace/collar that's worked well in the past for sleeping on planes, and I've got some new neck exercises and stretches from physical therapy to combat the neck pain that is inevitable from this much reading/laptoping/sitting. So I'm not worried.
Excitement? It's definitely there, but I've always been an odd duck when it comes to getting excited for upcoming trips. Usually my excitement starts to pick up in the -6 to 6 hours before a trip. So right now I'm still mostly in the "make sure not to eat garlic before the flight" and "try to spend as much time with the kids and Emily as possible" mental modes.