okay, I lied in my last post. I was a hula girl for halloween, complete with fake palm tree.

it's been an eventful week. besides wowing the party scene with my tropical foliage-accessory, I drove Ivan the Terra Bus on two round-trips to Williams Field (a snow runway six miles from town) in Condition One. (if you remember from my earlier post, Condition One means one or more of the following: wind greater than 55 knots, visibility of less than 100 feet, or temperatures lower than -100F.) my job was to transport about thirty FEMC (facilities, engineering, maintenance and construction) workers out to the building there. I drove them out at 6:45 in the morning, then went to rescue them after lunch once the snowstorm hit. Ivan was the only vehicle allowed by the station manager to make the trip out there, as the hard-packed "eggshell" snow road had been completely obscured by blowing and shifting loose snow and any other vehicle would have gotten stuck. verily verily I say unto thee, the experience of driving a forty-four-foot bus with three axles, six balloon tires (all taller than I), a 56-person capacity, a motorized stairwell, and a driver's seat ten feet above the ground in a snowstorm so dense that it looked like we were driving through a sea of skim milk, was completely exhilarating. the 'road,' once you leave the safety of land and pass over the transition to drive on the frozen sea, is marked only by a row of green flags attached to bamboo poles, placed about a hundred feet apart. the storm had blown several of the flags down, resulting in large gaps between flags. I was doing less than fifteen miles per hour, giant engine in fifth gear, crouched low over the horizontal steering wheel, peering intently through the swirling white in front of me and stopping when the next flag on the route was obscured. several times, I could see only the flag nearest us and would have to stop until the storm parted just enough that I could see, faintly in the white distance, the little green nylon blip that signaled the way to go. and so on, until we reached land and the safety of the station. a couple of the guys approached me afterward to congratulate me on a job well-driven.

here is a photo of what Ivan looks like, taken from its manufacturer's Canadian website. our Ivan is orange, not green and yellow, but you get an idea. I will try to include a picture of the both of us so you can get a sense of our size difference.

so, why am I here?

my friend chris raised the above question -- a good one. why am I driving huge vehicles through three-foot snowdrifts, going days without fresh fruits and vegetables, living and working in temperatures, as my fellow shuttle driver lonnie says, 'colder than a witch in the morning,' and missing my friends and family, at one of the world's furthest outposts? why is there a station here, with generators and bulldozers and dormitories, at all?

McMurdo Station is the largest of three stations run by the United States Antarctic Program, which is funded by the National Science Foundation in the interest of doing scientific research on the highest, driest, coldest, windiest, emptiest continent on earth. there are grantees here studying everything from seismology to geology to glaciology to the ozone layer to cosmic rays to the antifreeze properties in penguin blood. the other two US stations are Palmer, which is located on the Palmer Peninsula across the Drake Passage from the southern tip of South America; and South Pole (referred to simply as 'Pole', as in "how come I haven't seen chris at yoga lately?" "oh, he left for Pole last week."). if I have to tell you where that is, we need to have a word with your third-grade teacher.

most of us -- shuttle drivers, forklift operators, galley workers, janitors, nurses, firefighters, IT technicians, carpenters, painters, recreation specialists -- are here to support the scientists' work by making the township of McMurdo run. and fun. (see Halloween photo above for proof.) and of those groups, most work in the austral summer season -- october through february -- with a few intrepid souls 'wintering over' every year in complete darkness and temperatures that are way, waaayyyy lower than freezing.

here is a picture of me from sea-ice school a couple of weeks ago. a bunch of us went out a few miles in a hagglund (photo below). shuttle drivers are required to take this day-long course, designed to help you evaluate cracks in sea ice and determine whether they are safe to traverse in a vehicle. amazingly, a thickness of only 30" is required for any size vehicle, even a big forklift. who knew?

the next course I am scheduled to attend is 'happy camper' school, at which I will learn how to build and sleep in a shelter made out of blocks of snow. that won't be until christmastime, so the weather should be nicer then -- 'nicer' being a relative term.

** update 11/11/05: oops, forgot to add the pic of the hagglund. here it is. so cute, yeah? **

today is monday. I'm off from work, which is good because I've got a light case of the antarctic crud. stuffy nose and sore throat. it's about 18 degrees F, very little wind, sunshiny blue skies and light clouds. sending big fuzzy emperor penguin chick hugs to everyone.

c.