Journal-December

Dec 27
Merry christmas everyone ! I have enjoyed 3 days off to catch up on some much needed sleep. After a Christmas dinner of prime rib and lobster tail I spent 14 straight hours asleep. I did manage to read a great book about the Army convoy that crossed the US in 1919. It took them over 60 days to go from Washington DC to San Francisco. Go check out the story. Here is a photo of my christmas plate YUM.

Dec 15
Let me share with you one of the less than glamorous parts of being the air field supervisor. This is a photo of our rest room sled at Pegasus air field. There is a holding tank that collects the "sludge" but every other day a janitor has to connect a hose to the outflow and fill these barrels. He then has to seal the barrels and mark them " FULL HF". The H stands for Human. I will let you guess at what the F stands for. We all agree he has the worst job down here. When 16 barrels are full it is my job to ensure that they are loaded on a cargo truck for the 1 hour ride to McMurdo. I can tell you that the drivers are very carefull when they are hauling this stuff.

On a better note let me share with you a photo of one of our LC-130's with Ross Island and Mount Erabus behind it. The LC-130's are the workhorses down here. Our cargo arrives every other day or so from New Zealand on the C-17. It is then broken down , repacked and shipped by LC-130 to the South Pole and to other field camps around Antarctica. It can land and take off on skis and hauls 26,000 of cargo.

Here is some of the nose art from the LC-130's. Each flight crew trys to give their plane a little more personality

The good news for the week is that the crud finally seems to be going away. Each day there are fewer sick people. It is nice to eat in the galley without coughs and sneezes all around. Over this weekend we do a shift change and I will spend the rest of the season working days. I am ready for the change.

Only 10 more days until Christmas !!!!

Dec 8
WOW I have 2 weeks to catch up. The night before Thanksgiving I started having chills and feeling really bad. I went to bed and did not get up for 3 days. I was too sick to get up for Thanksgiving dinner or even watch football on TV. Thankfully a friend brought me bottles of water and orange juice. It took a good solid week before I felt really good again. It is normal for the " crud" to go through here every year but this year is far worse. The medical dept has had over 700 cases that they can't identify the cause. They are sending cultures to the University of California to help identify the strain . Some people here have been sick for 4 or 5 weeks. No one can remember a year when this place has been so sick. Any way I am feeling fine now except for a lingering cough which is good since we had 48 hours to move off the ice runway to Pegasus Air Field. Pegasus is built on glacier ice and is a good runway but it is an hour drive from McMurdo whicj means my work day has gone to 14+ hours per day 5 days per week. I get up at 4 pm , eat at 4:30 jump in a Delta truck by 5:00 and drive like heck to get to the air field by 6:00. At the end of shift the process is reversed. When I get off ,I shower ,grab a quick bite and head to bed. It does seem to make the days fly by though. In a week and a half I transisition to days for the remainder of the season. Here is a photo of a Cat dragging the air traffic control tower from the sea ice runway to Pegasus.