Weekly snapshot #9

Another windy morning turned gorgeous day for this week's snapshot! Is this starting to get monotonous? The summer season is more than half-way over, now, so in another couple months we'll be starting to get into sunset pictures. But in the meantime, I'm really enjoying this beautiful weather.

Merry Christmas from the South Pole!

Being away from my family at Christmas (and other family get-togethers) is definitely the worst part of working in Antarctica. Still, it was a festive holiday down here and I really appreciate everything everyone does here to try to make it a nice Christmas. We had 12 nights of Christmas-themed movies leading up to Christmas, a couple of people got together and made Christmas cards for everyone on station, my friend J the baker hung baked goodies from the frames of some of our doors on Christmas Eve night (when there was a (false) fire alarm at 7am on Christmas morning and we all stumbled out of our rooms to muster for our Emergency Response Teams, we ran right into them), and so on. 

Last year, the store manager organized a Good Santa/Bad Santa Mall Photo session on Christmas Eve and people really seemed to enjoy that, so I did the same thing this year. I even managed to coerce SR into being in a picture. We didn't get a very good one, but it's better than nothing!

The South Pole tradition is an annual race called "Race Around the World," which starts and ends right by the geographic pole marker but does a 2-mile loop around the base and technically goes through every time zone on the planet, which is crazy to think about. People dress up in costumes to run/walk/snowmobile the circuit and it was great fun to help the people doing the timing at the finish line and see people coming in in their crazy get-ups.

My favorite costumes that are on the station are a polar bear costume and a penguin one. We all think these are hysterical because neither polar bears (North Pole only) nor penguins (need water, and we're not on the coast) exist here. But we like to set up weird pictures with both of them, such as this one where a polar bear is devouring its penguin prey, perhaps for the first time in recorded history.

And then in the evening of Christmas Day, there were two seatings of a special Christmas meal, which they manage to make really special despite the fact that it's in the same place as all of our other meals always are. Blocking out the windows, adding festive lighting, candles, wine stewards, and so on really makes it a nice night for everyone.

Merry Christmas!!

Weekly snapshot #8

Another completely gorgeous day of clear skies, planes coming through as scheduled, and low wind.

Fun to have caught some action headed out to the Dark Sector Labs (no radio use allowed out there around the telescopes!) -- a tractor pulling a bulldozer? Not sure what was going on, but helps to bring something different to the weekly snapshot. Enjoy!

Man-hauling

One of the things I love about my job this year is that I get to go outside more. There's a heated storage area for booze and other retail overflow a few minutes' walk from the main station, so at least 3 days/week I like to suit up, go out there dragging a banana sled, load it up with things to restock, and drag it back to the station to carry up the stairs and into the store. It's great exercise that has a practical purpose, which I love. And even better, other people like to help out for the field trip and the exercise. On this particular day, I had two volunteer helpers and I was just walking along behind the sleds, feeling pretty spoiled and unencumbered, as they did the pulling back to the station. Great photo opportunity, though!

Weekly snapshot #7

Last week's heat wave has subsided, though it's still really nice out.

If I'd been 10 seconds faster in getting outside to take this picture, you would be able to see a snowmobile of scientists headed out to the telescopes. As it is, they're just a little dot way down the path, already having crossed the skiway (aka plane runway)--sorry!

Knit at Pole

My amazing, generous mother and her amazing, generous friends sent me off to Antarctica with boxes of supplies following me via the mail: specifically, knitting supplies!

So once the craziness of the start of the season faded, I started a weekly knitting night in the Quiet Reading Room of the station. Before that even started, my friend C (of frozen eyelash fame from last year's posts) found this orangey ball of yarn in the craft room that PERFECTLY matches her jacket, and I coached her through making a headband, about which she was crazy excited.

Shortly thereafter, I convened a Monday evening knitting group. Our first meeting, 10 people showed up, including 4 men, 3 of whom already had experience knitting. I was really impressed at the turn-out and how quickly the beginners caught on (including the guy in the upper right of this photo, who had to spend the first 10 minutes just trying to find an end in a very confusing ball of yarn). We had a great time and I'm hopeful Monday night knitting will continue and flourish through out the summer season--and maybe the whole year.

Weekly Snapshot #6

It's a heat wave at the South Pole! I'm pretty sure this is warmer than it EVER got last summer (I think our high was -9). And someone told me that overnight (which doesn't mean much since the sun never sets these days) it was at one point -0.7 degrees F! I think the highest temp ever recorded at South Pole was +9 degrees, a few years ago. I definitely don't hope we break that record. Just seems wrong. In the meantime, we're enjoying the balmy temps and uncharacteristically volatile weather. A few hours before I took this pic, it was very windy and the skies were white with blowing snow and clouds, and as I type this it's back to that...but the window during the picture was gorgeous! And there was even a scientist walking back to the station from South Pole Telescope, to give you some perspective and a splash of red in the photo...

Running around the world

So, if you run a circle around the geographic south pole marker, you're technically running through all of the time zones that exist and therefore technically running around the world. Here is SR completing that AMAZING feat on a gorgeous South Pole day. 

Weekly snapshot #5

What a totally gorgeous day. No wind, "warm" temps. Heaven. I took a long walk out to the "End of the World"--the spot a mile (? so hard to judge distances here) out from the station where the heavy equipment operators haul all of the snow that they clear out from around the station. But before that I dashed out onto the observation deck without my extreme cold weather gear to snap this photo. Last week when I did the same, the wind was cruel and I couldn't get back inside fast enough. This week, I was tempted to linger out in the sun despite my lack of hat or gloves. Just gorgeous.