Antarctica

Welp, I finally made it. Four and a half years of anticipation has finally brought me to the frozen south. On the 23rd at about 1400, the C-17 touched down on the ice runway out in McMurdo sound. stepped out onto 8.5 feet of sea ice and hopped on "Ivan the Terri-bus" (a massively lifted bus with HUGE wheels). The weather upon landing was 18C and about 15 knots of wind, the sun shining brightly. Sat through some safety breifings. I found that since I'm a Polie (headed to South Pole) I am labeled a transient and found my spot over in "man camp". No worries though, just means that I'm a temporary worker at McMurdo until I catch my flight south. Oh, and man camp is a bunkroom tightly packed with about 35 bunkbeds for all the male polies before we all fly south. So that was yesterday.

Today, I met up with my supervisor Brandon "Shaggy", and started work with some stretching and then got right to it, shoveling snow. Sure beats shoveling the heavy wet stuff in Montana. We shoveled for about 4 hours and never really got tired. The snow is so light, really wind packed, but light weight. Digging through frozen Pumice gravel is a different story. Anyway, we dug out around some pipes for a huge fuel project here at McMurdo. Good stuff. Anyway, the food is great, and the people are awesome. I'll be here at McMurdo for a few weeks. Have a good one!

Eric (18:31 10-24-09 NZ time)