Our dorm, Aug. 29, 2004, with PSCs faintly visible above it.Alan in Antarctica
Our dorm, Aug. 29, 2004, with PSCs faintly visible above it.
Our dorm room, with the TV they lent us. There are two American Forces
Network (AFN) stations, one sports news channel, two movie channels, a weather
channel, and several local information channels. AFN has been showing the
Olympics on one channel in the morning, and the other channel has several
different news shows, including CNN and Fox.
My bed in the room with Lou.
Lou on his bed.
The Olympics on my TV, Aug. 29, 2004.
The Big Lebowski party, Sept. 13, 2004.
The bars (there are two that are no smoking and one that allows smoking)
Gallagher's bar, Aug. 22, 2004.
The amateur band at Gallagher's bar, Aug. 22, 2004.
Table shuffleboard at Gallagher's, Sept. 7, 2004.
The wine bar, formally called the Coffee House, at our going away party for
Francesco, Aug. 25, 2004. This was formerly the Officers' Club when
McMurdo
was a Naval Base.
The rest of the party.
Another view of the wine bar.
What they do with corks.
I went bowling on Aug. 29, 2004.
My first two balls were strikes!
In fact, I bowled better than I have in decades, finishing with three strikes!
There are two lanes, with manual pinsetting.
Mike, doing the pinsetting.
Mike and Dave, who volunteer to work at the bowling alley. It is $1 for
shoes, $2 per game, and tips for the pinsetters.
The lanes have not been varnished for a while.
They were first installed in 1961. Apparently, they are the last
remaining American bowling lanes with manual pinsetting, and the Smithsonian
asked for them three years ago. But McMurdo decided to keep them.
Bowling Beakers first match, Sept. 7, 2004. I got 182!
The Bowling Beakers after almost winning our second match, Sept. 17, 2004: Doug
Pace and Linnea Avallone (standing), Dave Ginsburg, me, and Jen Mercer.
The oldest Brunswick manual pinsetter in the world.
On Sept. 26, 2004, I got to try my hand at pinsetting.
It is hard and dangerous work.
The store (which has a much larger selection of goods than I had imagined)
Candy selection
Tea selection.
Lonely Planet selection.
The beer, wine, and hard liquor selection.
The ATM down the hall.
The recycle bins down the hall. All trash is removed from Antarctica, and
65% of it gets recycled.
Visit to Scott Base, August 24, 2004. The Kiwis invited us to dinner.
The Ross Dependency is a slice of Antarctica, claimed by New Zealand, and Scott
Base (with the maximum summer population) is the "capital."
Scott Base on Sept. 17, 2004, with the sea ice compression ridge just beyond it.
A closer view of Scott Base on Sept. 17, 2004.
Scott Base from Cosray, Aug. 25, 2004. You can see the sea ice ridge just
beyond the base.
Roberto, Francesco, and Lou having a drink before dinner.
Sean Davis, Linnea, Jen, Lars Kalnajs, Steve Wood (foreground), and John Robinson. Sean and Lars
are Linnea's students from the University of Colorado. Steve and John work
at Lauder, New Zealand, and are only here for a week to check their instruments.
Dinner. This is the entire Base staff, including the visitors.
We had to wash our dishes after dinner.
Here is the galley, where you can take as much as you want to eat, at no charge. I have been
eating too much with too little exercise so far. Here is
the menu for the first week I was here. They have
a nice variety of food, and it is quite tasty. Occasionally they have
green lettuce, grown here in the greenhouse.
They arranged for all the employees to vote by absentee ballot.