Happy New Year!

One of the South Pole Traverse vehicles that I fueled. They're huge!
Ice Caves
Route marker flags. Dave and the vehicle that our Fuels group took to visit Captain Scott's Terra Nova Hut at Cape Evans. It was a slow but awesome ride!
The inside of the hut is perfectly preserved because it's so cold and dry here. It's eerie, almost as if his crew just vanished days ago. Their clothes, food and medicines still laid out. Amazing place! So far we've been lucky enough to tour the Cape Evans, Hut Point and Cape Royds huts (that one is one of Ernest Shackleton's huts, and it even has family portraits.)
Happy New Year! We enjoyed all the bands from Icestock and dancing afterwards, and are having a mellow weekend. I decided to post some older pictures from our trip to Cape Evans when Dave got back from Marble Point a few weeks ago. It was a departmental trip and we took what is more or less a tank to get out there. A three hour trip each way, well worth it! Generally when the ice warms and there are lots of melt pools, it's safest to take tracked vehicles because their weight is more distributed and they're less likely to get stuck. We'd been there before, about 8 years ago, but it's always a pleasure to slip back into history as the huts are perfectly preserved.
It's pretty exciting to think about a start to the year, and I like the thought of 1-1-11! We'll likely listen to a bluegrass band tonight and play cards tomorrow. I'll be at the airfield for an extra week since one of the Master Sargeants wrote a lovely thankful email about me, and Dave is in town on light duty still. Our fuel tanker gets here January 27th with nearly 5 million gallons of fuel for us to offload. Dave will be on nights for that and I'll be on days. And this all means that the Icebreaker Oden will be showing up soon, cutting a channel into the ice so the other ships can arrive. It's springtime, and we love and miss all of you!

Beautiful Times

A glacier's edge in the Dry Valleys. One of the many stops on the helicopter flight to Marble Point.

Frozen lake in the Dry Valleys.

A helicopter with a sling load.

The fuels building at Marble Point. This is where I would wait for helicopters to land (because they're so loud and they kick up so much dirt).

Dave made Grandma Koehlinger's lemon meringue pie for Thanksgiving, and it was phenomenal. I made the crust, greek salad, mediterranean olive tapenade, roasted eggplant and hundreds of chocolate truffles in six flavors. Karen made traditional fare; the turkey and mashed potatoes. It was awesome! Just being with three wonderful people for the holidays made it great.

The 7.5 hour Thanksgiving Day hike up Hogback was well worth the views.

I can't believe it's almost Christmas! Time has absolutely flown away from us this season. I've been enjoying my job, especially being outside all day everyday. Marble Point (helicopter refueling facility) for 2 weeks was a bit of perfection for me, as was spending Thanksgiving there with Dave, who was out there for a week after me. He's been staying busy at the gym and on a volleyball team. I've been making hats, making costumes for random events and hosting our wonderful friends, whom are stacked McCall heavy (I think there are 18 of us here this season). It's always a bummer being away from family for Christmas, and we miss all of you. We will, however, have dinner with my college friend Julie and her husband. And the other Ildiko is making some traditional Hungarian fare. It will be a two day weekend, and the thing I'm most excited about is our Fuels Department's Secret Santa exchange. It'll be good. Love you. More pics up on facebook if you go there.