The Comfort of My Own Time Zone

Just drove across two states (one very large state, Texas) to get back home.  It took 2 days of driving.    Yes, a very long drive!

Whenever I come home from a trip, it always feels so good not only to come home, (in place) but be back in my own time zone.  

At least for now.  A few days.   For in a few days...I am off to New Zealand and then Antarctica.

Have you ever felt the comfort of your own time zone?  Traveling is great.  But it is always so great to come home.

Whenever I go east, 2 or 3 time zones ahead, I have to adapt quickly, because I lose 2 or 3 hours of time.  It is difficult, to get up at my time 2 or 3 am!

When I deployed last year, it was 11 time zones ahead, that was 11 hours ahead of my home time zone.  I called it, "the place where tomorrow is today”.  For as we were about to go to dinner, everyone back home was just beginning their day.  At about 6 pm in the evening our time, I would see my emails beginning to be answered , as back home it was morning for them, and they were just waking up!

Time changing all those time zones was hard to adjust.  But I did it.  It took about a week to ten days to adapt. 

New Zealand and McMurdo Station, Antarctica are 19 hours ahead of my home time zone. 

I have never traveled that far before, in time or place!  What I am about to do?   What am I getting into?   It will be 20 degrees below down there!  Uh!

Every time I have traveled overseas, it is like going into an alternate state of consciousness. 

We enter this tube of time travel that flies for many many hours.    Crammed in our seats we sit, enduring the hours sitting there.  After awhile, is it day or is it night?  

Time travel is quite hard on the body.    Sleep deprivation, uncomfortable sitting for way too many hours in that plane.  And than you land in this place that is so different than home and way off your usual time.

But you do it.    You do it because there is no other choice!  And...it is a new adventure!

Whenever I am about to leave and step into the unknown, and travel to a new far away place and time, I brace for it. I am excited, but I brace for what I am about to endure to get there.    The pain, the wait, the time change.   The tube of time travel. 

And before I leave for this deployment in a couple of days...I rest and enjoy the comfort...of my own time zone.