Tuesday December 13, 2011

Well, today is our last day here in McMurdo. I am having some mixed emotions about leaving. This has been one of the most amazing experiences of my entire life. I don't have one favorite moment, and I don't really feel like I need one. The experience itself has been more than I could have ever dreamed.

We packed up the rest of our lab today and took all of our bags up to be transported. We will fly out tonight at about 1am (technically on Wednesday morning). Tonight after dinner, Dannie, Pauline, Sandwich and I went out to the McMurdo Station sign to take pictures. It was a great last day!

Monday December 12, 2011

We cleaned up our lab all day, brought things to the cargo line and returned supplies to Crary. Had a quick dinner and then I started packing. I leave tomorrow (Tuesday)/Wednesday morning. Then we all met up at the coffee house to exchange photos from our trip out to the ice edge. It was a great night. No pictures from  Monday, but there will be a few for my last day.

Sunday December 11, 2011

I slept in pretty late (almost till noon) but made it to brunch on time. Dannie and I wanted to go skiing waited till after dinner before we set out. It was so worth it! SO much fun! We stopped at an apple/tomato so Dannie could change into her ski boots. The skiing was really fun and the downhill was hilarious! We both fell so many times! As we started nearing Scott base at the end of our ride, Dannie was getting blisters on her feet so we flagged down a Delta and this nice guy gave us a ride back to town. It was an awesome day!

Saturday December 10, 2011

WOW! WHAT AN INCREDIBLE DAY! I had my last two time points today! It felt so amazing to finally be finished with my experiments. I feel so honored and thrilled to be able to say that I have conducted research on Antarctic fish IN Antarctica! After I was done with my experiment, I had a Skype session with a third grade class in Portland. They were really cute and asked a lot of funny questions, mainly about what my favorite kind of cookie is on cookie day!

Later, Sandwich and I went out on our last field day with B-009, another seal team. We all took snowmobiles to the ice edge near Cape Royds. It was perhaps the most incredible day of the trip. We saw so so so many Adelie penguins and took so many pictures!

Sandwich and I came prepared with our costumes and tried to blend in with the Penguins.

As we were about to leave, some Emperors jumped out of the water and came right up to us so we had to stay and take picture of them too!

We had such an amazing time! I kept my Penguin costume on for the rest of the trip. I even rode home on my snowmobile with it on! What a great way to go out!

Friday December 9, 2011

Ran my last two experiments today! It felt so good to get started on the last ones! In between time points, I had a practice video chat session with my friend Jackie in Portland. I will be having a video chat session with her third grade class on their Friday (my Saturday). Because I didn’t do much else but work on my experiments and return equipment around town, I will show you a video of inside Shackleton’s hut. Enjoy!

Thursday December 8, 2011

Since we got back so late last night, we were struggling to wake up this morning. Sandwich and I met each other walking to Crary at like 8:15. We labeled tubes till about 10, went and had biscuits and then got started on experiments. We didn't do too much else that day because we were both so exhausted. Since I have no pictures from today, I will show a video from November 2. It is a short video of an Adelie penguin running toward us to get a closer look to see what we are. The wind is a little loud but the Adelie is very cute! Enjoy!

Wednesday December 7, 2011

Heat shock experiment again today. Woke up really early (before 6am) to say goodbye to Evan. It was hard to say goodbye because we got along so well and he is a really great guy. Worked through most of the day on my experiment. In the afternoon, Sandwich and I got invited by B-470, a seal research team to join them on their last trip to recover some physiology recording equipment from a seal. I got some friends to take my last time points and we took off on snowmobiles. 


Here is Sandwich getting ready.

The drive out was so amazing and beautiful. After we recovered the equipment, we continued to drive out to Cape Royds. We parked our snowmobiles and hiked up to go see Shackleton's hut. It is right next to a Adelie penguin rookery. Here is a view as we approached Cape Royds.

Our group hiking toward the hut. 

Well, we have traveled as far as we can! That is open water that you are looking at beyond the last little hill!

Shackleton's hut.

Inside Shackleton's hut.

If you look closely, you can see where Shackleton signed the headboard of his bed!

Across the way was the Adelie rookery. We were not allowed to approach it and it was very cold and windy so they were not very interested in us. However, it was incredible to see all of those penguins in one place!

Me in front of Shackleton's hut. It was another amazing day in Antarctica!

Tuesday, December 6, 2011

Again, nothing but experiments all day. However, in the last few days, I have had some excitement not at all related to my experiments. Earlier last month, Jacqui suggested that I submit a picture to National Geographic. It was one of my pictures of the Emperor Penguins. I learned last week that it was voted as the Photo of the Week for the second week of November! Apparently, a lot of people like it and have been commenting on it. So that is the most recent news as of today. I just found the link to the picture on National Geographic's Facebook page. If you want to see the comments etc that people have left, here is the link:

http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?fbid=10150393513888951&set=a.10150393513808951.361590.23497828950&type=1&theater

If you don't have Facebook or can't get the link to work, here is the original picture:

That is about all for today! It was a pretty interesting day reading so many comments about my picture.

Monday December 5, 2011

Well, today was another day of lab work. However, it was a bit of a sad day today too. Isaac left today. Now it is just down to Sandwich and me to finish up our experiments. I will be leaving next Wednesday. It is starting to feel real that I will be leaving soon and it is hard to think about. Coming here has been one of the most incredible adventures that I have ever had. So many people have told me that they have always wanted to come down here. I feel incredibly lucky to have been able to come here at all. I feel even more lucky to have had the opportunity to come down as a scientist and do some really incredible research. Well, I don't have any pictures from today, but here is a really cool video from my trip out to New Harbor last week. This video was taken on our flight back. As we were flying back to McMurdo, we came upon some incredible icebergs. One had split into two pieces and the crack between the two pieces was this incredible brilliant blue. I will post a few pictures (again) of the iceberg and the crack, but this video is when we flew up and directly over it. There were other icebergs around us as well. It was a really phenomenal trip out to New Harbor and back to McMurdo.