Elephant Man

The Air Force is responsible for flying USAP participants in and out of Antarctica, and part of their contract is that a professional fire crew must be on hand at all times when a plane lands, is on deck, and takes off again in case of fire. So South Pole has a fire crew of at least a half-dozen people who have nothing official to do when there are no planes landing or taking off, which can happen for days on end. Lucky for the rest of us, our fire crew is an amazing group of people who go above and beyond to help out in any way they can when they are not on duty. This has been pivotal for me as I've been trying to get a grip on store inventory and moving things--especially heavy things like beverages--from one place to another. And there is some rearranging going on in the station, so that the largest storage place for store merchandise is turning into a maintenance workshop. I'm trying to move a ton of merchandise either into the store or out of the station, into the out-building pictured here. It's called the Booze Barn. :) At the same time, we're receiving our first of three big orders of the year, which arrives to the Booze Barn a couple of tri-walls at a time, needing to be unpacked and sorted.

So one day recently, a few of the firemen agreed to come out, helped me unpack a couple of tri-walls, and even brought the "Elephant Man"--the vehicle they use to go out and monitor the Air Force planes when they are here--over so I could take a ride in it back to the station and haul a bunch of merchandise back with us.

Only in Antarctica.