just enought time to toss out truckloads of photos this morning. maybe it’ll endup looking a bit like self-worship, but there’s loads o’ my own mug in these shots. guess that’s what happens when you, lacking a camera, just grab photos from friends. here goes:
to start with, we’ll track back. the terrabus was the first vehicle we took on the ground in antarctica. it’s a bumpy ride between the runway and mcmurdo.
next up, the geographic south pole - a traditional shot.
a couple of weeks ago i mentioned getting to go out on a boondoggle, leaving the station to do ‘important’ scientific work and at the same time, getting far enough away that we could only see snow. We took a pistonbully out into the great beyond and measured poles to test snow accumulation over time. it was a long trip (seven hours), and jenny cracked…attacking me with one of the marker flags as i tried to roll away. the trip was gorgeous - snow formations called sastrugi held razor thin sculptures in the snow, carved by wind, and we couldn’t tell which way was home save by our tracks.
last weekend held a disco party which eventually moved outside, leaving me to think we really are getting used to the cold. it kind of scared me how many disco clothes have made it down here in the last few years. there’s a community closet full of them. i’ll see if i can possibly track some good group party shots down…we fit the roles well, maybe too well.
there’s some awesome hole-in-the-wall type places as well, easy to miss if you’re just here for the summer (and focus on the bar and movies). good places to visit include the only place on station with any humidity - the greenhouse, and skylounge, a place far, far from everything else loaded with musical instruments and, generally, happy folk plying their talents. or learning…
finally, a good ol’ shot of the true nature of the south pole.