Fast Times at Pressure Ridgemont High.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone!  Or at least everyone in Antarctica since we are a day ahead.  Although we don't actually celebrate it till Saturday so it is somewhat anticlimactic.  But anyway, back to my point Happy Thanksgiving.   It has been a while since I have checked in.  Time is flying down here and I can't believe I have been here for almost 3 months.

This entire week has been a great one.  It started with my Monday off as usual.  We had a slow cooker sent down and made tortilla soup and pimento cheese in the lounge so we wouldn't have to walk to the main building for meals and could watch football all day.   All was going well until the Steelers lost, but the soup was amazing so I got over it.   Then I got a second day off today for my holiday.  Tomorrow is my birthday and I get an hour off work to celebrate, and then Saturday is our Thanksgiving where we have adopt a DA and I get another hour off.    Altogether a relaxing week.

All of the time off has been great but the highlight of my week and my favorite adventure since I have landed on this harsh continent is definitely the tour I took of the pressure ridges last night.   The pressure ridges are where the sea ice meets land and the constant slow tide and weather changes causes the ice to buckle and make formations.  We left for them after work at 9pm.  My friend Grace was our guide and drove us over to Scott base where we took off by foot.   She used an ice axe to test the sea ice for cracks and we made our way through the most amazing Tim Burtoneque formations.  At the beginning the wind was blowing pretty hard and snow was blowing over the drifts.   The only thing I can compare it to is what the desert looks like in Lawrence of Arabia.  It was breath taking.   About 10 minutes in the wind died and the rest of the hike was gorgeous.    Below are a few of my favorite pictures.

I hope you are all doing great back home and enjoying a great meal with loved ones.   I am so thankful for this experience, all of the people I have met,  the beautiful landscape and the wonderful supportive friends and family back home.  I hope you all feel as blessed.

The wind and snow blowing over snow drifts

Me, Grace and Gwen

The group taking in the view

My favorite formation next to a melt pool, I really wanted to drink it even though it would be salty

A melt pool

More Happy Camper Pics.

The Great Outdoors.

So.  Bad news on the dinner party.  Although it was a smashing success and I have now brought Sonoran hot dogs to the lovely population of Antarctica (some of whom indulged in many more than one) I was running around like a chicken with its head cut off the entire time making food and didn't get pics.    I really need to get better about remembering to take out my camera and snap pictures but I get so caught up in the moment I forget.   On the plus side, I have a lot of amazing pictures of my recent boondoggle away from station.

I was picked to take part in an Antarctica survival course called Happy Camper.   Basically you learn how to survive outside in Antarctica in Condition 1 weather and how to make it through the night in white out conditions.   You learn how to use everything in our standard survival bags: some crazy manual radio with plugs and antennae, a small portable stove, ice saw and shovel, how to pitch a tent in snow, how to form a quarry and make ice blocks in order to make a wind wall and an ice trench to survive the night.    After learning these skills and working your butt off in -15 degree weather all day the instructors leave you and you are on your own until 8:30 the next morning.

I set out to sleep in a ice trench but after working in the freezing cold all day I could not stay warm and was exhausted.   I helped others build their trenches for a bit and then wisely picked to sleep in a Scott Tent - the sturdiest of all shelters, it fits up to four.  The two other girls on the trip were snug in the tent with me asleep at 10pm while the boys shoveled out their trenches till midnight.  Most of them were overambitious and built too big of shelters thinking they would be more comfortable.  What they didn't think was the bigger the space the more room your body has to heat.   The only time during the entire trip I was warm was for the first two hours I was in the tent.

We luckily had a portable stove and used it to melt snow.  I filled up my Nalgene with boiling water and threw it into the bottom of my mummy bag.    I slept fine for a few hours and then woke up freezing, counting down the hours until we could go back.    I kept thinking the entire experience would have been much better if A: we could have built a fire, but since that would probably break a few international laws I get why it isn't the best idea, and B:  we should have had s'mores and steaks and a good camping meal... oh and beer, that would have helped.   Instead we got dehydrated "just add water" meals in a bag.  I had Beef Stroganoff - WOOF.   On the plus side we also got candy bars to keep our blood sugar up and our bodies from getting frostbite/hypothermia.

Overall I am so glad I did it and was proud I made it through.   I know in 20 years I will look back and remember it as one of the coolest things I have done, but while it was going on all I could think was this is awful and cold and uncomfortable.   Still you need that course in order to do a lot of the cooler boondoggles so I am so glad they were able to get me into the course.  It was definitely a thoroughly Antarctic experience and cool to get out and see the land off base.

This is a Delta, the vehicle that drives over the sea ice to get us to the camp site

Me in an ice trench

The scott tent I stayed in

The ice block quarry and the stove site in the background