Thursday, November 1, 2012

Well, today was a pretty good day. We started off by running more experiments. Because we started running them so early on and have been running them all day, every day for a while now, we are coming close to the end of the laboratory portion of our trip. That really does feel good. Especially since last year I was running experiments three days before I flew home! It will feel amazing to finish up by the end of this week so that we can focus on some more days of fishing to wrap up our population studies at our study sites. That being said, I don't have any pictures from today. However, I do have some fun pictures of other interesting things that have happened while I've been down here.

This first picture is something kind of funny because it wasn't something that I even thought about when I first came down last year. It is one of the fire engines that we have on station. We have an actual fire station with a few (2-3) fire engines. The fire fighters on station usually don't have to do much except respond to the occasional dryer or popcorn vs microwave incident. However, they are always ready at the airfields in case of an emergency with the flights. So here is a picture of one of McMurdo's fire engines!

The next two shots are just incredible views that I see every day that it is nice out. The first is looking forward as I cross the foot bridge guarded by the metal troll. From here, I can see Mt. Discovery and some of the Royal Society mountain range to the right. The second picture is taken as I look to my left. This is one of my favorite places, Observation hill (Ob hill for short). I haven't been up it this year, but I know that it will be happening soon.

Finally, one of the funny things about McMurdo is that you can tell what the weather is like without even looking out of a widow. If it is nice out, the helicopters are flying...and you can always hear them! They have to sling-load a lot of gear and supplies etc to and from field camps throughout the season and it is always an incredible site to see when they are sling-loading supplies. Here is a great shot of a helo with a sling-load as it is arriving back to town.  Well, that's all for now!