Laura On Ice

Well, not my ship. But out on the horizon, you can now see a teeny tiny dark spot. It gets a little bigger every day! It is the icebreaker Oden, which is now on its way to McMurdo. I tried to take a picture but it’s still too far out. Eventually it’ll get in here and break the ice in the channel.

 We also saw penguins from Hut Point on Sunday - little Adelies. They walked for a while, then all laid down and slept for about fifteen minutes, then got up and started on their way again. They were pretty far out, but it makes me confident that we’ll see some more once the channel is open. I hope we get to see some whales too!

So I’ve done some MARATHON posting! Hope you enjoy it all. I suggest you go to the post named SLACKER and read it up to this one, but your choice, Dear Reader!

 Now it’s off to bed, and in the morning, INVENTORY!!!!

(Oh, and I’ve got to give major credit to Jimbo for his post on Anthony Bourdain’s blog for giving me a kick in the pants. I adore Anthony, but I think I can be more responsible than him when it comes to posting.)

Antarctica has a thriving music scene, and at McMurdo, our culminating event is Icestock, an excellent outdoor concert. We had thirteen performers this year whose styles ranged from punk to bluegrass to blues to whatever Don Juan Pond plays (there’s a long explanation for it, I just don’t remember it all right now!)

In typical Ross Island style, the weather turned crummy on the day of the one big outdoor activity. Kish, our overlord of music, had to shovel about five inches of snow off the stage, and then lay electrical cables down. Yes, he’s still alive, and managed to play some great sets with his fabulous bands, despite the cold.

 I came out a little late (took advantage of some sleep-in time) but arrived in time to enjoy the (musical) fruits of the chili cookoff contest. The chili chefs each got their own milvan to decorate and prepare their master recipes.

Here’s an example of one of the milvans. CHILI-LICIOUS! I don’t have a picture of Holly Troy’s milvan for some reason (sorry Holly!) but I will say Holly’s chili was pretty darn good - GOOD ENOUGH TO WIN THE CONTEST! Congrats!

I have to say, my primary reason for coming out was because I’m an official groupie of the band Don Juan Pond. (Check out the link to see a picture and the story of the actual Don Juan Pond. Beware if your mind is as twisted as mine.) DJP is made up of my co-workers and friends Jean and Jane, and their super-rockin’ bandmates Genevieve and Chantal. They rocked it out and did not freeze, despite, well, the level of clothing you’ll see in the picture below:

It definitely snowed the hardest and was the windiest and the coldest while these chicks were playing. But they are HARD CORE and did their whole set just like this.

YES it is all about the band!!

Here’s a nice shot taken by Daniel from the stage looking down at the crowd. I am actually in this picture - I’m sitting on the porch of the Carp Shop’s Sawbucks having my cuppa coffee with the infamous “Carp Sauce”, chatting with my friend Danny (who lives in Buena Vista and is one supercool old hippie.)

That night we had a “Sex and the McMurdy” party - all gals except for some “special guests”. There were cosmos, lots of fun and laughter, and…well, I can’t say it but it starts with “s” and ends with “trippers.” Female bonding at Mactown is an amazing thing.

New Year’s Eve was quiet for me - the next day was a workday. I did stay up and rang in 2008 with a nice glass of port and lots of love and good thoughts for everyone!

Just wanted to give a MEGA word of thanks to Mom, Kathy and Samina for sending me such great Christmas presents! And many thanks to Sue and Phil and Grandma and Grandpa for the Amazon gift certificates. Here’s some photos of my present opening, courtesy of my friend Kim, who oohed and aahed over everything along with me and took pictures for your pleasure.

Here’s Kai and my tree - I didn’t have enough space to put presents under there but it gives a little Christmas cheer to our fridge.

Me, complete with bow-head, VERY HAPPY to have so many fun things to open!

THANKS MOM!!!!! Love you lots!

The biggest party of the year is the Holiday Party, which is held in the Vehicle Maintenence Facility. They clear out all the trucks and other vehicles, and clean the place up really nice, and we decorate it for the holidays. It’s a wonderful big party - the space is large enough where everyone can fit in comfortably. There’s quite a bit of food and libations, and everyone gets really happy. (I should say, mostly happy- as tends to happen during the holidays, there were a number of breakups and other emotional things going down. Just not to me.) 

They had a slide show where everyone could submit pictures of friends and loved ones. So Mom, Dad, Jimbo and Kristi - you all had your picture projected on the wall of the VMF in Antarctica! Sita got her photo up as well, of course, complete with balls of yarn.

I unfortunately lost my camera for a while at this point. I rediscovered it a few days later, on actual Christmas (this party took place the Sunday night before, so we had two days to recover.) I did manage to score a couple pictures from my co-worker Daniel.

The fuelies made this freekin awesome Abominable from scratch. VERY CHRISTMAS!

My friend Jean with the candy cane pole. There was much pole dancing going on once people really got into the beer and unfortunately the candy cane did not survive the night. However, it did live up to its intended purpose with the mistletoe and all. Incidentally, you can see the slide show going on in the background.

A crowd shot. This is slightly less than half of the space we had to play in.

My friend Bill presenting McMurdo’s Santa with a Bass. Many people made that same present for Santa that night. As they say, “bring him cookies and beer, he will come to your house first next year!” Unfortunately, the excesses of beer and friskiness (i.e. gropeage of personal lady bits) landed Santa in H.R. I declined to sit on Santa’s lap this year, which turned out to be a good choice, I think.

All in all, it was a really fun party. It was great to be able to see everyone and have a laugh. Also, the Kiwis grilled up some tasty sausages. Too bad they wrecked them with that ketchup. (Yes, I have a thing about the Kiwi ketchup. I just can’t drop it.)

My friend Kim and I did a little walk up to Roll Cage Mary. She is thusly named because she is a statue of the Holy Virgin, but for some reason they felt the need to protect her as if she were a racecar. The day we went out, it was sort of warm (well, like 30 degrees - it’s all relative, I guess) and you could see where the sea ice is melting, and seals come hang out here lots now.

Here’s the sun on the little channel of meltwater. That dark thing that looks like an abandoned rug is a Weddell seal. He’s just hanging out, sleeping in the sun.

This is Kim, posing at the rollcage. There was lots of fog over Ob Hill, which is in the background. It also got hella-windy once we got up to Mary.

So my adventure for December was going out to the Pressure Ridges that are on the border of the McMurdo Ice Shelf and the Sea Ice. It is the point where the ice shelf moves one way, and the sea ice moves another. Basically, they push together and make some beautiful and strange ridges in the ice. They can be fairly dangerous if you don’t stick to a flagged route, because the movement of the ice makes them change a little every day. I went through training to become a guide for the trips, which we held for a few weeks in early December.

 I’ll let the pictures do the talking.

Here’s a picture from the ridges, looking back toward the Kiwi’s Scott Base. Scott is much, much smaller than McMurdo (I think only 50 people or so) and very homey. All the buildings are interconnected by passageways, so you can get where you need to go entirely indoors. Everyone has cute accents, but their ketchup is way too sweet for my tastes. The stony knob in the background, almost at the center of the picture, is Castle Rock, which is one of the few red colored rocks I’ve seen here. (Dave, explain please!)

The pictures turned out strangely dark - it was a cloudy day, so that probably had something to do with it. If I come back I’m DEFINITELY GETTING A BETTER CAMERA! These were some awesome ridges that had been weathered by wind and melting.

My friend Lou with a Poke Stick. There are cracks in the ice all along the path, some of them quite large and deep. Poke Sticks are good to have if you are walking along a place with lots of snow. The green flags mark the route we walk.

We also saw seals because they come up through the thin parts of the ice and hang out on sunny days. Unfortunately my camera battery died before I could get a good picture. But picture a massive brown slug with an amazingly cute face, and there you’ve got it.

The ridges are only open to Americans for a short time out of the year, so it was great to be able to go out a couple times and check out this dynamic Antarctic landscape.

Ok, ok, I know I’ve been slacking with posting! The month of December was CRAZY in our department. I know it’s no excuse! I also lost my camera for a while so I’m missing a period of time with pictures, unfortunately.

I’m pretty settled in the routine here - mostly kickin’ it in the office and so on. I’ve had a few fun things going on, so I’m going to put in a bunch of posts ALL AT ONCE here, so everyone can get caught up!

 So sit back, relax, and enjoy my return to LAURAONICE!

The Holidays are a really busy time in the Rec Department, so we’ve had lots of cool stuff going on and I’ve been up to lots of stuff! FINALLY here are some photos from Thanksgiving Day.

In the morning, it’s tradition to have the Turkey Trot, which is a footrace that goes out to the airfield and back. Usually it’s quite an effort for people to get up in the morning because there’s usually a LOT of partying the night before.

Here they’re off and running! Despite the many hangovers, we had a great turnout - we figure around 250 people ran. It’s a 5k race and it was a very chilly morning! Some people wear costumes and it’s generally just a really good time.

This is the looooong view of the runners going out to the Sea Ice Runway (they’re those tiny little ants at the middle of the photo.) I didn’t run the race - I helped set up and handed out T-shirts to the fastest runners at the end.

After the race, everyone usually just relaxes until the dinner. Holiday dinners here are great - the Galley makes a really nice fancy meal, complete with all the traditional things like turkey, stuffing and gravy, and with some other nice options - the vegetarian dish was delicious. It was a napoleon composed of portobello mushroom, roasted red pepper, grilled tofu and polenta. We also had plenty of freshies! There were also lots of pies and other tasty desserts to choose from.

Here are the folks I sat with at the Thanksgiving meal. From left to right: Martin, me, Katia, Kevin, Dave, Kai and Allan. Notice the nice white tablecloths - those aren’t there every day, heh! But the blue trays are ubiquitous.

Last but not least, here’s me and my roommate Kai.

So we’re gearing up for Christmas now, the office is all decorated, and the big party is only a week from this Sunday! Time flies!

Hi Everyone!

Sorry it’s taken forever for me to post something - the holidays are pretty busy for the Rec department. We’ve had lots of things going on, which I’ll describe in separate posts.

Generally, I’ve been busy but otherwise doing all right - the 24 hours daylight is starting to get to me a wee bit - I could stand to see some stars! The food’s also getting a bit monotonous - they’re starting to repeat quite a bit. I crave freshies like you wouldn’t believe!

Anyway, here’s my friend Jane getting ready to do some awesome bowling on our two lanes with manual pinsetting.

The lanes were installed in 1961 and I imagine they were quite the thing at that time! Now the lanes are warped by long use and the leaky roof that drips meltwater on the wood every year. It’s still fun and challenging to play on, and pinsetting is great exercise!