Weekly snapshot #49

Over the winter, the way it felt to be outside wasn't anything I had any sort of comparison for. But stepping outside to take today's snapshot, with the sun shining, I had the feeling that I could be outside on a cold Wisconsin day. Kind of a strange, but soothing, feeling.

It's sure not warming up any too quickly. We're way behind on getting the runway groomed for the arrival of Baslers bound for McMurdo as early as this weekend, because temps have been below standard equipment operating thresholds for too long...so now the thresholds are having to be ignored and rotating grooming shifts established to make sure we're ready for the outside world that is headed our way.

Sunrise dinner

Last weekend was the final major event of our winter before the planes with summer crew start arriving next month: Sunrise dinner! The covers are off the windows of the galley (and everywhere else on station) and even though the week of sunrise was very blowy and overcast and we didn't actually see the sun coming up, you can still tell there is ambient light in the building again, finally! And the luau-themed dinner was mighty delicious (complete with salad from our still-functioning greenhouse--hoo-ray!).

Weekly snapshot #48

The sun is up! I keep gazing at it in amazement and then immediately remembering that it is inadvisable to stare directly at the sun. Have to work on retraining myself on that. But the sun is up!

Scott tent

Like last week's post, I have some pictures from you from awhile ago--these from the end of August, when sunrise was just beginning. Our winter carp put up the tent we have down here that is supposedly very similar to the tents that Robert Scott and company used on their fateful trip to the South Pole in 1911-12. So my Materials girls and I went out one afternoon to check it out, against a pretty amazing backdrop...

...including going inside, where the small space immediately filled up with steam from our breath.

Nothing like crawling inside one of these things to marvel anew at how hard-core all those Antarctic exploration guys really were.

Weekly snapshot #47

It's probably likely that that last cold snap will be our final one for the season and the temps will continue to rise from here. The winter crew has officially started with the procedures for preparing the station to open for summer personnel in just about 6 weeks.



It's kind of blowy today and very overcast particularly in the direction of the telescopes, so this week's snapshot makes it look darker out than it actually looks on the ground...

...as does this shot off to the side where the sky is clearer. I'm actually kind of surprised at how dark these pics look. To my eye it looks like broad daylight, and the sun might actually be peeking above the horizon for real, but we just can't see it because of the clouds. In any case, our sunrise dinner is this coming weekend, so the sun is morally obliged to be risen by next week's snapshot.