Site Plan
Day off!! The first one since we’ve been down here. Yesterday after work I went for a walk above town. Mcmurdo sits down in a sort of basin surrounded by hills made up of volcanic soils. One of the only bits of exposed land on the continent. Here are 2 pictures from a hill west of town. One is looking out over the sea ice and the other is of town.
www.mcmurdo.gov/community/general/webmap/map1.html
here is a link to an interactive map of the Base on the Mac Town web site. You should be able to browse over the buildings and click for a picture and explanation. We are in building 201 aka Salmon River Inn. We work in building 155 the main opperation center of the base.
Both flights yesterday boomeranged. I went for my walk with the intention of seeing the later one land but there was an inpending cloud bank in the far distance which I guess was enough to turn both flights back. I did see a Helo arrive from Marble Point. Marble Point is, as described by Randy Norring the coordinator of the camp, “a truck stop for helicopters headed for the dry valleys”. It just reopened for the season this week and they are currently shuttling supplies out there via helo. They also did an over-ice traverse to bring 5000 gallons of aviation fuel and other heavy equipment that arrived yesterday from the 60+ mile drive. Randy is a resident of Randolph NH and a friend from way back in ’93 when I workd for the AMC.
After going for my hike I went to a seminar at the coffee house to get our laptop set up to access the McMurdo network. Unfortunately, we do not have a network hub in our room so I have to either use a public terminal (like this one) where the keyboards are so stressed that you have to pound on the keys to make them work or I have to bring my laptop to a terminal in one of the other buildings. I guess I can’t complain considering the location.
Today we are slowly knocking things off our list of things to do. Luci is currently signing us up for insurance coverage. We talked to recreation about doing an italian class and for volunteering to drive a shuttle. We are going to hike up Ob hill (the one behind the base in the picture) this afternoon and then go over to the NZ base tonight.
Luke
Hey L&L-
It’s great, as always, to follow along on your trips. Congrats on fianlly making it down there & keep the beautiful posts coming. I passed along the URL to Ba Herman, so I’m sure he’s tuning in once in a while, too.
Peace-
Paul