Weekend Camping :)

A nice little Saturday night camping trip out by Castle Rock on a sunny, warm and windless night does a soul good after a week of seemingly never ending work! It was fun to be able to have a tent all to myself and curl up into a cozy sleeping bag and scrunch down into the darkness to avoid all the light that never goes away! From where we camped we could see the sea ice slowly approaching as the Swedish icebreaker ship the Oden moves slowly up and down the channel opening up the ice so that the fuel tank and re-supply ship can come in a few weeks to McMurdo. We climbed up Castle Rock and enjoyed the endless beauty of a still night in a world of snow, ice and mountains...

the Oden breaks away the sea ice in the distance

"Car camping" with a Piston Bully









The little apple warming station









Mt. Erebus

Recebba

Mandy

View from the top of Castle Rock of our tents below in the snow

someone got his face rubbed into the snow

The view from my little tent in the morning.

Top Ten Reason's my Job is Hard

1) "Special" Project
2) Biggest building on station
3) 10 hour days, 6 days per week
4) 1 monster spray machine, paint thinner, and fumes
5) no materials
6) not enough materials once materials arrive
7) leaks in the hose
8) heat trace on hose starts on fire
9) harnesses, ropes and respirators
10) Painting outside in Antarctica is cold

Me working on the roof of 155, making it (electric!) NSF blue. I have been able to do some of the spraying which is very physical work, wrestling the "Anaconda" hose around.

Adelie Penguins!

Yesterday morning I woke up feeling entirely rested and rejuvenated after falling asleep at 9:00 the night before! (There is totally something to this getting a good night of sleep thing!!!) So as I am walking out of my dorm building I see my friends Kira, Rose and Marty running past. Marty has a camera. "Penguins!" they yell, "come on!" This is 7:10 a.m. and I have to be to work by 7:30. I toss the idea of skipping it to be on time for work, eat breakfast etc... and proceed to toss my backpack and heavy Carhartt jacket on the side of the road chasing after them. WE jog all the way down to Hutt Point which is probably only a .5 mile away and run up over the little ridge to see... a family of about 30 Adelie Penguins!

They were all sitting next to the opening in the sea ice while a seal swam near by in the water. It was a magnificent moment and a wonderful way to start the day. Being witness to such wild beauty here is such a blessing and one of the reasons I love working in Antarctica.



(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Adelie_Penguin)

January 7, 2010
I am sitting in the Coffee House in Antarctica. It is summer here and the snow has been falling for days. On these solo journeys there are times when you feel a little bit alone. Naturally. Being down here I very rarely feel lonely. There is always someone to relate to and to spend time with, always something going on to participate in, in fact it is the most actively involved in a community I have been since I left Ithaca. But there are moments, like right now, that I feel like I WANT to be alone. To digest the past few months here and where I am at with myself.

Life always has those funny ways of picking you up and putting you down on a road you never knew existed. This time I have ended up at the bottom of the world with a collection of people who drift with the wind and have lived and danced and loved and fallen and gotten up again all over the world. Talking to people about the places they have been and the lives they have led leads one to think of what kind of life you want to live. What is important to you? What do you want to do with this one wild and precious life?

Some people seem to know the answer to this question. Some would say there is no answer; some might say that there is no question to begin with... We put one footstep in front of the other, we happen upon new influences and inspirations that either bounce off the skin or sink in, saturating our souls and pushing us to pursue our dreams. I have a million dreams. But somehow I also feel one plane away, as if there was a magic portal into another life that I can see into but haven't figured out how to enter. Which way to go? East of the sun? West of the moon? North of the pole? Indeed, north of the pole. Into the next dream, one of love and healing and adventure. Do our thoughts rule our lives? And if they didn't where would we be?




A favorite by Spanish poet Antonio Machado for you:


Wanderer, your footsteps are
the way, and nothing more;
Wanderer there is no way,
the way is made by walking.
By walking one makes the way,
and looking behind
one sees the path that never
will be traveled again.
Wanderer there is no way,
only trails upon the sea.

Cartoon of the Week

This is a cartoon drawn by a guy who works down here, and i thought you all might get a kick out of it. It is a bit of an inside joke because Skua's are the birds that sit and wait outside of building 155 where
the cafeteria is. The Skua's are fierce looking birds with curved sharp beaks and they literally stand guard at the doors waiting for some unsuspecting victim to walk out with food. This is a common practice, to take
your meal on a plate to another building and when you walk out and get stared down by a Skua you better watch out because they will dive bomb you! Along the loop around Ob hill you will find a whole graveyard
of bones from steaks, chicken, and other various meat that the skua's either stole off of someone's plate or simply dumpster dived! Sometimes they will do a dry dive bomb and just go after people who smell like food! I have not been attacked, I don't think I smell quite like "food".

Happy New Year!

January 3, 2010 Well, 2010 has already brought many things down here on the ice. For one, we finally got our paint (roof coating material, not really paint, but... whatever!). So that means that we will be back working on building 155 starting tomorrow. This is good! There is a shortage of beds at the moment at McMurdo and so they have to send some people home early. Getting our paint was one of the factors in our favor to staying on for our whole contract. The welcoming in of 2010 was rather lovely as well down here. On New Year’s Eve I went for a ski on the Castle Rock loop. I am using alpine skis that I rented down here. They are older than I am and were working rather well except for all of the first time tele turns that I was attempting! At the bottom of the massive hill one of the bindings completely fell off, so I had to walk the two miles back to Scott base.

At 11:00 I hiked up Ob Hill with a few friends and we floated into the year of 2010 on top of the hill, looking out over the ice continent. The sun was out and the hill was blocking the wind so it was fine to just hang out and sip fine whiskey and nibble dark chocolate talking and welcoming the New Year in.

We worked on Friday, January 1, but had the 2nd and 3rd off. Having two days off in a row feels like the most amazing gift possible! To make it all the better, Saturday was Ice stock. This is an annual new year's celebration down on the ice. My friend Jade and I painted the Ice stock banner under the stage which was really fun! We had a beautiful day for the event; the sun was shining and no wind. 16 bands played outside and ohhhhh the fun we had... The icers were out in full form, costumed up and frolicking around, dancing and merry making. I never thought in a million years I would be attending a music festival in Antarctica. Who knew? Hush hush now friends... (wink wink!) mural painting! Happy New Year! The Ukeladies Helen the Hooper Jade