With a flourish, a sharp bank in our direction, and the aid of a full circle rainbow, the last flight of the summer season flew off into the sun.

The station has closed for the season, leaving a grand total of sixty individuals to learn to navigate through the next eight months and the return of the outside world.

The closing came one day early (along with an associated amount of confused and unexpected hubbub as departing folk were caught by surprise) due to weather. The Air National Guard decided that it was against their best interest to wait out the potential weather and pulled the remaining fifty or so summer employees by two this afternoon. We spent the rest of the day in an easy sort of manner, moving into the new station (for those of us out in summer camp) and letting the commitment of the next eight months sink in.

We finished the eve with the traditional showing of John Carpenter’s The Thing - a horror movie about an alien in an isolated Antarctic station creating mayhem, paranoia, distrust, and murder. We’re nothing if not morbid!

Tomorrow I begin my role as the IT Systems Administrator full time, with a lovely backlog of work and a heap of good education from the previous tenants. So goes the switch from day to day, from summer camp to the new station, from Cargo to IT, and from summer season to winter.