Christmas in July

My friend/boss, K, spearheaded an awesome Christmas in July extravaganza this month. Leading up to last Sunday's extravaganza, we had a series of movie nights with Christmas-themed offerings, we decorated the galley for the occasion....

...had a Christmas cookie-baking decorating night...

...and then, on Sunday, all gathered in the galley to watch "A Christmas Story" on the screens in there...

...leading up to a delicious dinner...

...followed by a White Elephant-style gift exchange that started out tame and turned out to be hilariously raucous. Such a fun time, and a great way to cap off the month. After this week we're really in the home stretch of the year down here--only three more months or 1/4 of the experience to go.

Weekly snapshot #39

Cold and dark! That pretty much sums it up for this week, which is totally fine with me, because this is I think the last spate of total darkness we'll get to have this winter. Have to appreciate while I can the sight of the Milky Way stretching overhead, the faintest auroras showing across the sky, and the multitude of stars. None of which you can see in the attached pic, but oh well. It's all there, I promise you.



 

What now?

For the first time since I got down here in October, I do not have a backlog of posts ready to go and had to go looking through my pictures for something to give you this weekend. I came up with these pics, of me and my froworker K, pretending to warm ourselves by one of the test smudge pots the fire team was trying out prior to the medevac last month. The first shot was taken by someone we asked to come out there with us for the purpose, and the second was taken with a telephoto lens through the window of the cargo office by someone who wanted to stay inside while we had our little photo shoot. And it really is just all for show; getting close enough to the fire to actually feel its warmth put one in the danger zone for being completely engulfed in flame should a gust of wind suddenly blow in the opposite direction. Still, I love how both these photos turned out and figured I'd share.

The main chatter around station this week is that it's only about 100 days now until the station opens for the summer and those of us on the winter crew will start filtering out of here. It sounds so short to me! I get a little sad, and I have to keep reminding myself that we still have three solid months left. When I think of all that has happened in the past three months, it's a nice reminder that there is a lot of good stuff still to come--it ain't over, yet. And hopefully that stuff still to come will start happening soon so I'm not scraping the bottom of the barrel for next weekend's post....

Weekly snapshot #38

It's definitely still winter...

...but the moon is so dang bright it seems like the sun! It's so crazy beautiful out.

This is probably the last full moon we'll have that will have this drastic effect on how much we can see outside. By the time next month's full moon rolls around, dawn will be...dawning. So, so strange.

Winter "resident"

Resident South Pole photography expert (and 12-time winter-over) Robert Schwarz took this amazing long exposure panoramic (360-degree) photo of the South Pole skyline a couple of weeks ago. (The long exposure is the reason it doesn't look very dark out; trust me, it's dark!) That's the Milky Way making an arc through the middle of the picture and you can see some Auroras on the horizon. I haven't seen it, but Robert says he could see with the naked eye a slight glow on the horizon where the sun would be if it was rising. It will still be pretty dark down here for the next couple months, but I'm constantly reminded that we're on the upswing of winter and this night won't last. Which honestly makes me kind of sad.



And then another:

If you want to see more of Robert's amazing photography, time lapses, and other info from the perspective of someone who is practically a South Pole resident, check out these links:

www.antarctic-adventures.de

www.facebook.com/southpoleskies

vimeo.com/polarlights