Nov 18 2006

Antarctica Lost Passengers

My Friends,
Check out our lost passengers today. It was a wild day at the Air Strip. All of the sudden out of the frozen snow cone of Mountains, sea ice, and volcano’s eye arrived these passengers trying to catch a flight out of McMurdo Station to the South Pole. The Airplane is from the Air National Guard of New York State. It’s an amazing place to experience each day. The beauty arrests my breath, the cold stunts my speech, and the people warm my heart. Unfortunately, it’s too cold to smoke a cigar or my pipe.
I am well, warm, wind burned and sunburned,
Be well and bless,
Mike

* Photo Disclaimer: These “Antarctica photos are by the Author or copied from the common “twisted I drive” within the “intranet network”. The photos were placed on the “twisted I drive” (noted with “tid” in the label) to share and copy for all to enjoy.

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Nov 14 2006

“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.

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