On the road again...

I found myself wandering around Christchurch today, going store to store, searching for a pair of foam slippers, or better known as Crocs shoes. This particular piece of footware is especially handy in field settings, as they make a nice, lightweight and comfortable camp shoe. As I began to piece together my packing list for my season at the Lake Hoare field camp, I added a pair of Crocs to my list, but since I didn't already own a pair I decided I could easily pick some up during my stopover in New Zealand.


Much to my surprise, I could not find a pair of Crocs anywhere in the city. This was very unexpected, as only a year or two ago, Crocs were the shoes of the moment and you could find them for sale just about anywhere- at the gas station, the airport, in road side stands and at the drugs store. As I wandered around the city today, inquiring if the stores still carried this shoe, I was told time and again that, "We no longer carry that shoe, and we're not going to get any more." It made me wonder how something can be so necessary at one point, and then completely irrelevant the next. I had confirmed that Crocs, like many other bygone fashions, are officially a thing of the past.

And I can't help but compare the passing of Crocs, with what appears to be the simultaneous passing of the blog. I have seem innumerable blogs (including our own) maintained for a year or two, and then slowly abandoned to the great void of the internet. It makes me wonder if the blog has simply been overtaken by newer more interactive forms of communication, or if the format of blog is flawed and in need of new innovation.

However, despite the questionable relevance of the blog in today’s Facebook world, I plan to spend the winter posting regular updates and photos chronicling my four months spent at a remote research camp in Antarctica. Grandma, this is for you..........