USA Fall/Winter 2014

The most incredible hotel I've ever stayed in; the Dreams in Punta Arenas, Chile, in a seaside view room up on a high floor was incredibly luxurious after wintering at Palmer Station.  This is where I'm going back to Tuesday night before my ship leaves for McMurdo Station.

Dave and I took two trips to Idaho, Boise and McCall.  We were house shopping as well as enjoying the fall and winter and planning our wedding.  This is the park that is downtown and was closest to the apartment where we lived.  It looks so great with the upgrades and landscaping!

A hike close to McCall off of Lick Creek Road to stretch our legs.  Dave and I have hiked to  Snowslide lake several times, but it never gets old.

The Sawtooth Mountains are stunning!  This view is from Stanley, Idaho in the downtown park.  After Dave went back to work, I visited the area and camped.  It was beautiful!

This is part of Hyde Park, the neighborhood where Dave and I are looking to move to in the North End of Boise.  It is a small area that has a lot of great cafes and pubs and is close to the Foothills, which are filled with mountain biking trails.

 My parents and I visited the park in Verdi close to Reno for a walk.

 We also drove to see the coast for a couple days.  Sunset at Schoolhouse beach.

 A gorgeous car and sunset on the coast.

We visited a new redwood grove called "The Old Grove" in Occidental, California.  It is a 33 acre privately owned grove that is open to the public in Sonoma County.  Very few people know about it so we had the whole forest to ourselves, and what's even cooler is that it is not manicured like State Parks normally are, so there are a ton of small redwood trees too, in addition to the big ones.  Found out about this gem from a new Antarctic friend.

 Mom & Dad in the Old Grove.

Schoolhouse beach in Bodega Bay, CA, has the prettiest, most colorful little rocks instead of sand.  This is zoomed in pretty far with my camera, as they are the size of tiny peas or large peppercorns.

Dave and I went camping in 0 degrees Fahrenheit in order to be able to see Leslie Gulch, a phenomenally beautiful place in Oregon on the border of Idaho.  Totally worth it!!!

Leslie Gulch is on the drive from Reno to Boise.

 Nothing like seeing the desert under a fresh veil of snow.  So beautiful!

 We had the whole place to ourselves, and it seemed so much like southern Utah!

This was in McCall, standing next to the cabin on the lake where we would like to have our wedding reception.  It is right on the lake!

 We visited Gold Fork hot springs on both of our trips to Idaho.  What a great way to relax!

Thanksgiving.  Dave and I got to be home for Thanksgiving and do some cooking.  The turkey turned out incredibly well.  What a fun day!

Dave and Mom with last minute touches before dinner.  We had turkey, porcini green beans, mango salad, Mom made a cranberry desert, had stuffing, gravy, pumpkin pie and manhattans!

My first Christmas home since college!  We took a holiday photo by the tree that Mom and I decorated.  Mom made a delicious and traditional lunch and I made a potato dish and salad we often eat for the holidays. 

We visited my Grandparents with Dad on Christmas Day.  We took their favorite, homemade chicken soup from scratch and I made chocolate chip cookies.  We took photos after they opened their gifts, and the photo is Grandma with the hat that I made her for her birthday.  She made us some beautiful blankets.  She was dressed in green and grandpa in red!

The past 3 months flew by pretty quickly, and I'm heading South again tomorrow.  I'm meeting the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel in Punta Arenas, Chile.  I'm sailing with it from there to McMurdo Station, where I will disembark and fly to Christchurch, New Zealand and hopefully visit my brother and sister before flying back to the US.  I will be celebrating New Years with my boss in Chile.  Dave will visit some Antarctic friends he hasn't seen for years in Portland and hopefully cousin Amy too on the way.  I got to see her for a couple days on my way to Washington for my 10 day Vipassana meditation class which was the best thing I've ever done for myself.  It was so fun to laugh with Amy, and to see some of my cousins, aunts and uncles as well as Skype with both sets of our brothers and their families.  Love you all very much, and thank you for everything! Happy New Year!!

Antarctica: Ship & Palmer Winter

Winter Over 2014 Women of Palmer Station: Including two science gals (4th & 6th from L)

Pot Fishing (Meghan & I).  It's a bit like on the Bering sea crab fishing shows, but slower.

Galaxy Arm from the top of the glacier behind Palmer.  My friend Elliott took this amazing shot.

The night before the Laurence M. Gould left to go to Antarctica, in port in Punta Arenas, Chile

Sunrises & sunsets in the Gerlache Strait (near Palmer) were incredibly colorful.

 

Scott & I were the night shift fishermen.  He has been an Alaska Bering Sea crab fisherman for 27 years, and his wife who I also worked with for 5 years so I learned from the best.

Gerlache Strait

Histodraco ildii: This fish was a super rare find, and I talked the head scientists into naming it after me when for a day it was thought to be a new species.  Turns out it wasn't but it's still cute!

Palmer Station and the LMG from a Zodiac boat that we took the scientists out in to fish.

Sunset at Palmer from the ship.

 Gerlache Strait

Iceberg seen during one of 5 fishing trips, each were a week long.

We got into some frozen seas on one of our fishing trips since it was wintertime.

Water intake building at sunset at Palmer Station.

One of 4 Zodiac boats I repaired and got ready for use for the season.  They are over $20K each. Below is the view from my bedroom.  The Station Manager was so nice he gave me the chief scientist room which has a huge bed and this view.

Scott and I trawling.  That's dragging a net behind the boat for 20 minutes on the bottom of the sea floor to collect ice fish because that's where they are found.  Scott and I worked the night 12 hour shift and usually we did our thing in the dark, which is why I like this photo. 

This was right before we found out that this trawl had our biggest catch of the trip!  Everyone, the captain and scientists were thrilled to find the specimens they were looking to study.

Pancake ice.  This is when the sea first starts to freeze, eventually these pancakes get bigger until they touch and stick together to form one piece of ice which thickens in the cold.

 Another perfect sunset at Palmer Station.

Antarctic Sheathbill.  This guy is my favorite, he walks and looks like a chicken and birders from all over the world take cruises to Antarctica just to see him.  Palmer had 6 of them this winter.  This one is resting on the deck of the Boathouse.

This was my work space, the Boathouse, and I made it the prettiest little garage/shop ever.  Pretty lucky in a Station with 4 buildings to have one all to myself.

 The Gerlache on our way north.

Lots of incredible snow covered volcanic peaks and hanging glaciers in some spots too.

Pot fishing.  You can see how cold it was and how often the deck would freeze.  I'm in the most fashionable orange pants of course.

 More pot fishing.

 This was a very common scene, trawling at night.  This was our first fishing trip of 5.

Opening the trawling net to see what was inside was always thrilling for me.  So many cool creatures.  And I always rushed to get the creatures that we didn't need back in the water...here in fashionable red pants kneeling.  Below is Palmer Station and the ship from one of the nearby islands, Torgesen.

This was my work view...the ship back in port in Punta Arenas, Chile.  For my 10th Antarctic Season, I left the US in mid-June and got back in early October.   I worked 64 days (in a row) on the ship fishing on 5 wild and interesting fishing trips for a very famous scientist, Art DeVries, who studies antifreeze proteins in ice fish.  It's an important chemical that is being recreated in labs and used to keep airplanes from freezing and crashing in cold temps, windmills spinning freely in cold weather, organ transplants working better, in cryogenic surgeries to save tissue, ice cream being fluffier and actually everything dairy being smoother (all Unilever products) as well as wrinkle creams working better.  Cool stuff, great people!

I followed that by a joining the Winter-overs at Palmer Station as their Boating Coordinator.  I spent most of that time fixing and servicing 4 Zodiac, 50 horsepower outboard engine powered inflatable hypalon boats.  I learned a lot about boat repair and made some really great friends.  And got to see some really beautiful places!  It was incredible to see Dave after all that time, and those pictures will be up next.  Love you and thank you for looking at my pics.