I'm sitting in a hotel lobby, a lovely place in Punta Arenas, Chile. I am four days from my scheduled leaving for Antarctica. I am surrounded by eclipse chasers.

This is not my tribe.

There's a woman here who has been to 23 eclipses. She is loud and proud about this number.

There's the editor of Astronomy magazine over at another table. He's had that job for 34 years. He's a celebrity to this crowd.

There's a retired physician from Phoenix talking with his eclipse chaser friends. The group talking about past eclipses, future eclipses, photography equipment, eclipse stories.

For all of them, Antarctica is secondary to the eclipse. The eclipse is the draw. "I'm going to ride the bikes, but I don't want to use crampons or an ice axe."

Feels similar to last year: many people went to Antarctica for the penguins. I went for the ice, the rocks, the cold, the continent.

I'm here to spend days on Antarctica. I'm here to walk on the snow, see the ice wave, put an ice axe in my hand, crampons on my feet, and experience the cold.

This is not my tribe. I don't know what I was expecting, but I don't know why I wasn't expecting older people, less active people, eclipse people.

Landed in Houston pretty much on time, and wandered to the nearest club lounge. Turns out, no, wrong one, you want the one closer to your departure gate. I was still uncertain if was in the correct lounge, so expressed the uncertainty to the front desk gatekeeper. Her demeanor was stiff to the point of hosility until she looked at my ticket, and saw that, indeed, I could be in the lounge. She was then very pleasant. The switch gave me discomfort whiplash.

I spent an hour in the lounge, mostly reading emails, and received a "suddenly filled with the feeling that you’re travelling with someone," response, which made me sad and immediately defensive, as I am now unable to have some solitude without triggering someone else's anxiety. I wish we hadn't ended up here, but since we are here, I'm embracing empathy and gratitude.

Close enough to the flight departure time, I walked over to the gate. A long line wound away from the gate, and my stomach dropped. Unsure what to expect, I walked to the front of the Group 1 line and asked the woman there if she knew what the long line from the gate podium was. She let me know that was where paperwork was being checked, the PCR results page and Chilean C19 vaccine passport document. The app showed status, if green, you're good to board.

Ah, anxiety dropped. I had my paperwork checked in Phoenix, I went to the back of the Group 1 line, and waited.

Shortly, a couple joined me in line, and made some comment that caused me to turn around, say hello, and ask, "You going to Antarctica?" "Yes! For the eclipse!" and we started chatting.

I had assumed they were going to the same location that I was going, but realized fairly quickly that they were not. They talked about the cruise they were going on, and yes, expected to see the eclipse. Ah. Not Union Glacier. We chatted a bit more about paperwork and such, and stopped talking as her anxiety jumped. She couldn't log into her app to check her documents status. He logged in and looked, she was fine, no no, she insisted, he was looking at his data, what about her paperwork? Not able to help them, I disengaged from the conversation and waited for boarding to start.

To my frustration, when boarding did start, I became caught up in the rush. The gate attendant had asked for the pre-boarding groups, but didn't announce it on the speaker, so when the line moved forward, I moved forward also. I hadn't realized the people in front of me were of the pre-boarding status. I was able to board with them, as the gate agent realized boarding me was going to be easier than having me step aside as the crowd surged behind me. While I was on the jetway, no one boarded after me, which was a bit disconcerting.

Turns out, the paperwork of the woman behind me in line had not been checked, and the boarding process had been blocked while she stepped out of line. I found this out later as the couple boarded later in the process. She was on the plane, and complaining loudly about the boarding process. The two of them bickered non-stop, she was kinda mean, and, according to her, he couldn't do anything right. Quite the couple. I mean, you're on the way to Antarctica to see an eclipse, and you're sitting in first class. The plane didn't leave without you. What is there to complain about?

Yeah, so, on a plane, on my way to Santiago. I am hoping to sleep for much of this flight.

Okay, my yuzu. It'll rot if I leave it, but I can't take it into Chile.

Not sure I made the right decision bringing it along, but at least I didn't make the wrong choice bringing it along.

With my four bags piled up by the door, and a mad-panicked dash to finish packing up the house, I managed to be nominally ready for this trip. I had to ask Chris to finish packing up my stuff. He arrived about an hour before Mom did, and was helping me move things, up until I left. I am frustrated that I had to ask for his help, and incredibly grateful he was good with the work.

I'm going to continue to channel that gratitude on this trip. In particular, this is going to be the trip of empathy and gratitude. I fully expect this trip to be stressful, with delays and hiccups, things not going my way, and frustrations. And it will all be fine: in the grand scheme, in the small scheme. I'm on my way to Antarctica, most people don't go to Antarctica. I am incredibly grateful that I am one who does.

Mom arrived a bit before we scheduled to leave. I was almost ready. My large bag is about 37 pounds, my smaller bags around 12 pounds each. I did decide that, yes, I am going to take my single yuzu with me on this trip down to Chile. I won't be able to bring it into the country, but I will have 18 hours to eat it, which should be enough time. Loaded it all into Mom's truck and off we went...

... to her house down the street. She and E had fully moved out, but he was somewhere around the property. While she said hello to him, I dashed in and said goodbye to the house. I have... strong emotions about all of this stuff around the house, but they are whatever, it's fine, adults, own decisions. Still. Strong emotions.

Arrived at the airport not particularly more stressed than normal, channeling empathy (the people working here today are dealing with a lot people, some of them grumpy, few of them showing compassion, I can be kind) and gratitude (I'm on my way to Antarctica, this is amazing!), which lead to channeling kindness and patience almost as a direct result. To my surprise (and I noticed), everything was just easier. When I arrived at the ticket counter, the premier lane was empty, so I walked straight up for help. I noted when several other people came up and started talking with the ticket agent who was helping me, rather than, you know, waiting in line, or talking with the agent who wasn't helping anyone. I noted their behaviour and noted my lack of response to their behaviour and moved on. The lack of reaction beyond observance felt good.

And speaking of the ticket agent! We had a good laugh. For Chile, one needs more than a couple forms before boarding the flight. In particular, one needs a recent negative PCR test result, and a validated Chile digital passport. I handed the printed copies to the ticket agent, who was rightly checking them. She looked them over, then said, she couldn't let me check in with my documents, because they didn't say my vaccination was valid. Turns out, the instructions were in Spanish, my document was in English, and we both had a brain fart trying to figure out why my documents were not correct. We laughed when we realized the crossed languages, and I was on my way.

Of note, heading through the Pre scanner, the woman in front of me triggered the random search. Maybe there's something to this empathy and gratitude thing. I'm grateful I didn't trigger that thing again.

And I am grateful to be heading to Antarctica. One of these times, I'll go with someone. This is not that year.