Condition 1
The Antarctic version of Thanksgiving went off this weekend without a snag. We did 3 seatings of people from 1:30 to 6:00; the first of 250, the second with 350, and the last with 400. There were many volunteers throughout the day to help us so it actually made the day go by much easier than a normal day in the kitchen. Plus, Luci and I were just back, refreshed from our two days off in Hut 10 much to the jealously of our co-workers. On Wednesday we invited over a very few friends and I made my famous chicken curry for six which seems like snack in the pan after cutting up 350lbs of flank steak for a single meal for 1000. We did very little on Thursday (real thanksgiving) except sit around, watch movies and play computer games. We ate a bunch of our specialty food that we have been saving up: the smoked salmon from Lee in Alaska, some nice cheeses, a Pandoro from Luci?s parents, and a couple of mangoes. I called my Folks for the first time since we have been here. They were amazed that it could be Thanksgiving day here and still the night before there. I still haven?t figured out the time zones myself.
I haven?t been out to the Ice Runway since Friday (it is Monday here). On Saturday we had our Thanksgiving celebration and on Sunday and all day today it has been snowing like crazy. The most snow that I have seen since I?ve been here. We got over a foot yesterday and then it let up over night. Then this morning it started up again and has been going all day. The snow has been associated with 30-40 mph winds making for condition 1 in most places outside the base today. So the runway and the road to it have been closed for a couple of days and the flights have all been grounded. It looks like it is going to continue into tomorrow. A vehicle on its way back from the Black Island satellite communications station got stuck out in the weather crossing the bay over 24hrs ago and looks like it will be stuck for another night at least. I got out in the snow early on with a snowboard. The visibility was pretty low so I didn?t get any pictures.
Luke