“Happy Camper” Course in Antarctica
Happy Camper is a class that all personal who wish to travel outside the realm of McMurdo have to go thru. As you know I used to instruct Winter Survival/Camping so I wasn’t that excited to be there. I was worried that I would revert back into my Instructor Mentality and begin to Field Marshall everyone. I fought the urge better than I thought I would. However, I made sure everyone was fed at night, well hydrated, and had a place to sleep comfortably before I went to bed in my “quansi hut”. Which is a snow dome made by shoveling snow into a huge pile, packing it down, and then digging a flat place to sleep inside. I slept great. So well that I got up about 20 minutes before we were picked up and all the camp chores where done. Oh well. I wasn’t the instructor. I was a student that was a slacker in the morning. It was warm enough to smoke but I didn’t have my Pipe or Cigars due to my congestion in my chest/cough. Either way, the whole experience reinforced that I am getting to old to sleep outside in the cold.