After a 30+ hour daze of airplanes and airports, then having to turn on the radio to block out the eery silence of sleeping in the desert without 19 other people and the rustling of the Barge, I’m sitting here in my parents house in Reno, Nevada. With my puppy at my side, my parents off to the store (with a request for cucumbers! Thanks Russia, because of you I’ve fallen in love with them) and all the windows open to admire the view of the desert, so completely different from the landscape of my home the last month, I’ve never experienced such a strong sense of bitter sweet emotions.

I’m glad to be home, I’ve missed my friends and family, but I honestly don’t know how to put into words how much the experience in Cherskiy has impacted me, how much it meant to me, and how much I’ll miss it.

Cherskiy itself is absolutely beautiful, undeniably the most beautiful place I’ve ever been, but it’s the people I’ve shared this experience with and the science and research we conducted together that will keep that place so close to my heart. When John said in his last blog that this could be a fundamentally changing experience for some of the students, I count myself in that group. I think we all will.

The science was amazing. It was easier then I thought to talk about the work that I’ve been doing Siberia. I had imagined that talking about seasonal bacterial community variation and spring flush versus summer base flow conditions effecting DOC decomposition would be hard to explain to people without science backgrounds, but it was easy enough with the multiple people I’ve already shared my experience with. Whether in a mix of broken Russian and English, or at the back of the plane while stretching our legs, sharing my experience and data, the Polaris Project, and of course stories of Sergei Zimov and the work he does, has completely dominated every conversation. And that was just conversations in passing. I can’t wait to really sit down with people and explain all that I’ve been doing and all that Polaris and the Zimov’s have done.

Now the people of Polaris; the teachers, post docs, fellow students, and of course the Zimov’s and all the others of the North East Science Station, that is one aspect of the trip that would take quite a while to do any justice to. Lets just say that I love them all, have made a group of friends as close as family, and get a little teary eyed thinking about all the different good byes as our group slowly diminished. From the station where we had to say good bye to the returning students, to the airport in Cherskiy saying good bye to Nikita, to Yakutsk, to Moskow, and finally Washington where the last of the new students and all the PIs had to go off to our separate gates, each good bye was painful but full of hopes that we’ll see each other again.

So thank you Polaris, I can say with complete truth that this has been the best, most life changing experience of my life. It’s concreted the direction of my career and fueled the flame of my determination for field research. It’s given me a group of friends I’ll never forget and a set of memories that will never fade. The field aspect of Polaris might be done (for now) but the work is really just beginning. Now it’s time to process data and samples and, most importantly, share what we’ve done.