thanksgivings

after sharing my dozens of antarctic landscapes, i thought it was time to show you the mcmurdo from the inside.



on thanksgiving day, which we celebrated on saturday, november 25, my co-workers and i all dressed up in our nicest clothes ate a huge thanksgiving feast in the galley. it's a phenominon not to see folks in carharts. i think we look pretty snazzy!

later that evening, my supervisor, kris (the front and center in the previous photo) threw me a wee little birthday party gathering. here are a bunch of us drinking mojito's (ghetto style).





our partying then spread over to the coffee house where we watched live folk music and drank wine. a spendid night for all in company!

be-celebration

my birthday was one of my best days yet!!



(although i have an intuitive feeling that many more will come!)

our shuttles crew scheduled a trip out to CAPE EVANS, one of the three original antarctic explorer huts.



a group of 17 went, all whom i love dearly and were in jovial spirits. above is a group shot we took out at the hut in front of the barnes glacier.

below, a small group loaded into the delta for our three hour drive! look at our smiles, giddy as can be.



our giddyness got giddyer. we saw our first adele penguin waddling accross the barren expanse. we stopped to take photos, curiously it waddled our way to check us out. penguins are such peculiur fellows!



when we finally arrived at the hut, we stripped down from our warm coats to enjoy the sunshine.



viewing the interior of the hut was a truely a amazing experience.

cape evans is the largest (15'x 8') of the first antarctic explorer cabins. built in 1910, the nearly 100 year old hut is now a historic site restored to it's orignal state. i loved the kitchen table, a warm gathering space in this harsh and desolate environment.





to the right of the kitchen table, bottles of preserved food line the walls.
the heinz ketchup bottle being the most stunning! it's hard to believe that it's nearly 100 years old.



cape evans was built in tera nova bay during british explorer, robert falcon scott's, second expedition to antarctica. at one point 25 men slept here, including shackleton. this is shackleton's bed.



in addition to thier rations, the explores subsisted on blubber from seals, and often ate penguins. this dead peguin still remains, totally frozen (NOT stuffed).



one of my most poinant memories is the pungent smell of these rooms. the room below contains piles and piles of seal blubber, gooy, frozen and seeping.



while i walked around inside i heard giggling and screams from the snow outside. play ensued!! besides tacking each other, and snow shovel rides, we also made snow angels and human pyramids!



i particularly enjoyed doing cartwheels with my 10 lb bunny boots out in front of the barnes glacier!



and of course, on the way home, our vehicle got SOOO stuck--almost 15 times!. the warm weather melted the snow, making driving in our 44,ooo lb delta nearly impossible. with shovels, and large wooden boards we dug out the delta again and again.



marty and andrea, remedied our spirts (which were actually still jovial), and late night--midnight--weariness. our emergency survial bags were pulled open to create a moveable water boiling station that could follow the delta as proceeded from stuck to more stuck. once the water boiled, we all enjoyed hot coco made with melted ocean ice!



after hours of digging we got home just before 2am, still sunny and shinning outside with thanksgiving day to look forward to.

sea ice school

here at mcmurdo, FSTOP--the field safety training program-- offers a number of courses teaching antarctic survival skills. across station, fingi's (aka: fucking new guys or first seasoners) cherish these trips; they are an opportunity to really see the "antarctic" that every one home in the states imagine!

earlier this month, i was lucky enough to go out to sea ice school on a warm gorgeous day.



after a half day of in classroom, our group ventured 2 hours across the sea ice to the hutten cliff field camp, where our on site training took place. on the way we stopped for a needed pee break. here is a photo of my co-worker, marty (a fellow minnesotan), and i standing in front of the looming mt. erebus.



our training site was located just at the base of the mount erebus glacier tongue. sea ice cracks are here pretty easily identified from the surface but in order to truly see how deep they are we cleared them of snow. (don't be deceived by the photo below, we actually used shovels--marty was just prodding to make sure solid ice lie below the snow.)



cracks in the sea ice literally look like stair steps when they are dug out. once we reach the bottom stair we then use motorized drills to determine the ice thickness. the detachable drill bits each measure 1 meter; we link them together so that in total they measure over 10 meters! knowing the depth of the ice helps us determine which vehicles can be driven across the cracks. although the sea ice is five meters thick in this location, the crack was too wide for even the lightest vehicle to cross.



our instructors also taught us a variety of ways to anchor tents in the ice; ideally even the fiercest storms will not be able to pull well anchored tents.



at the day's end we pulled our haggland (the orange vehicle in this photo) up to hutten cliff camp where the scientists gave us an overview of their wedel seal research.



our timing was magical. this particular location is special because the seals here have no prey creating a perfect birthing spot. nearly forty female seals and their day old pups dotted the camps perimeter...and we got soo close.



a fabulous day in the field!!

emperors on the runway

Yesterday a rare and cherished event occured here on station. Six emperor penguins meandered accross the sea ice, straight into Ice (Runway) Town, and then out onto McMurdo's Ice Runway.



Unfortunately, I was back at our office in McMurdo. By the time I arrived out at "the strip" they looked like little waddling specks on the horizon.



However, some of my fellow co-workers and the firefighters who had to shoo them off the runway ramp got beautiful photographs that were posted on our common computer drive. I thought they were so beatiful I had to share.



Penguins have been appearing on station quite a lot this season. I have hopes that I'll get to see one (or a few) some day soon!

silversmithing

Recreational activities on station are in abundance! And by abundance, I literally mean excessive abundance. There is no possible way to participate in all of the activities, and to make choices more difficult they are all FREE.

Activities include: Salsa lessons, Swing dance classes, Yoga, Tai Chi, Guts and Butts (aerobics), Indian Dance, Introduction to Creative Writing, Dodge ball, Volleyball, Basketball, Kum Do (Sword Fighting), Tap Dance, Dart Tournaments, Bowling, Pottery instruction, Craft Room (Sewing instruction), Stitch and Bitch, Weekly Science Lectures, movie showings, film festivals, Outdoor Recreation Trips (cross country skiing and hiking treks), Climbing Gym hours, just to name a few.

I participate in many of these activities, but my main weekly dedication (in addition to the gym and outdoor treks) is silversmithing class.



The class is offered once (or twice) a week for 5 consecutive weeks, and is taught by a skilled and patient teacher named Harry Fishel. Most of the jewelry work I do at home is cold forming; this class has provided access to torches and dremel tools. I am attempting to make handmade paper rings, and more elaborate necklace and bracelet designs.



I am thoroughly enjoying myself.



Coincidentally, I met a fellow Hempstead High School graduate in my class! Jeff, the skilled photographer who took all of these photos, is also from DUBUQUE, Iowa.

vastness

The Sunday following Halloween is normally a sore day for folks on station, but despite the previous evening's debauchery I decided to take advantage of the lovely weather and go for a full on Antarctic hike with two of my roommates, Krista and Elizabeth, and our friend Jude!



Although the afternoon was beautifully sunny, the temperature still was just barely above zero degrees, and the wind was harsh. We each layered on what felt like everything we owned (3 pairs of socks, 4 shirts, 3 pairs of pants, and full wind protecting gear for our face and hands) and set off across a desert of ice and volcanic stone heading on a 7-mile hike to Castle Rock.

For the first time, I really felt the harsh isolation associated with this wondrous place!



Because the weather here changes so rapidly and hidden crevasses dot the seemingly flat landscape, we are required strictly follow flagged paths, and checkout a hand held radio from the fire department. Two little red huts are strategically located along this route as havens away from the wind. At the first red bubble, Apple, we stopped to eat and had a pee break. The wind sure is harsh on one's barren bottom!



In addition to the cold, wearing bunny boots or FDX boots makes walking feel as though you are lifting 15 lb weights with every step. Looking out toward Castle Rock (the jutting black mountain in the photo above) with white stretching on forever it seemed as if we walked for hours yet hardly made any ground. The vastness is profound. Silence stretches out in all directions and the wind drowns out our words.



When we finally stopped at the base of the rock, Krista's stunning humor had us rolling around on the snow. Here is one of our hot modeling photos. Doesn't Krista look like a sexy catch in all that ECW gear!



After our laughs, we ventured up a steep slope to the base of the rock. The wind whipped around the peak, making photo taking an extreme adventure; the view of the frozen ocean spreading out in all directions was phenomenal.



Although you can't see an inch of my face, here I am standing on the peak!



We also managed to keep the camera from blowing over for long enough to take a timed group photo!



And then we headed on our long hike home.