Miscelleny

I take random pictures, every week, and then don't do anything with them so I'll just post them here.
Why not?

This is not just this past week as I have a backlog, but here you go:

Sometimes we find perfectly good cake in the foodwaste bins.  

That's Rob, posing next to our truck that we can't move because that stupid Skua bird is in the way.   We walked out to get in our truck that morning and a bird had parked itself right in our way.  Because of the Antarctic Treaty, we aren't allowed to just shoo it away.  The general policy of wildlife is that you can't do anything to alter their behavior (let's not talk about having an entire base).    You can't walk so close it looks at you, you can't make loud noise to disturb them and you certainly can't shoo them out of the way.   We moved our morning meeting into the galley and waiting another 20 minutes for that Skua bird to fly off. 

I got to play with the metal bailer the other day.  I put all these drums in here and then I got to crush them! 

All down into one tiny cube! 

It was so fun I decided to give you another photo. These are all the tin cans from the galley. 

Look at that pretty cube!!

This fun looking vehicle didn't want to work in the cold morning so the VMF had to send out the Emergency Recovery Vehicle (a pick-up truck with all sorts of gadgets attached to make vehicles go) to warm it up.  You notice the hose and engine? That's a huge heater to warm the engine up. On cold mornings the VMF is very very busy.   There were no less than two times we had to call them ourselves.  

Penguins!  These emperor penguins had been hanging around for a couple of days and they walked right into our bay!  What a great afternoon.  The Waste department took our van down (no Skua impediments this time) to look at the penguins.   For people without transport, we had a van driving people down from work centers all afternoon.  

We won a night out at this little hut on the ice (random drawing).   It was cloudy when we arrived and stayed that way all night so we didn't get any stargazing.  I'm not to upset though. The weather had called for aggressive wind with temperatures at -72 (with windchill) so I was fine with it being overcast and still. The next day, however, was beautiful!

Here's that same hut the next morning. That mountain in the background is Mt Erebus-the cloud above it is steam-it's a living volcano. 

Clearly we chose the right group of people to go with-outfits, wigs, food and fun photos shoots. Such a great night out.  All these photos are compliments of our friend Debbie-far right. 

Under the Ice

The Observation  Tube

Last year, we heard rumors about an "Ob Tube".  A metal tube that was put down through the ice and projected into the water. Supposedly,  you could then climb down into and do some underwater Observations.   This year the “Ob Tube” was installed and we were able to climb down there!  It was awesome.  Because the tube is out on the sea ice, you have to formally go and get a radio and have a travel buddy.  For this Adventure, my partner in crime was Gracie.  When we arrived there was no one around so we could spend as much time down there as we wanted.   When you first get down there, your eyes are drawn to the ice above you and the shoots of ice that are growing down from the ceiling.  Then you start to notice the ground and wonder what all is down there.  There were long white slivers all over the ground and big white prickly urchins.  There were big blogs of purple or black all over the ground.   Next I looked into the distance and saw jellyfish slowly swimming through the water and as I went to take a picture of it I found my camera kept blurring and as i investigated I realized it was refocusing to the tiny tiny creature that were swimming all around the tube.   As my eyes adjusted to following those tiny things I realized that there was a swarm of orangeish minnows in the middle distance. I was shocked that I had missed them originally as they were clearly a cloud of fish and as I looked above them i noticed slightly larger school of silver fish that slowly circled the Ob Tube.  About this time I looked back down at the ground and realized the big blogs of color might be massive jelly like things that were alive because you could seem them periodically draw together and then spread out again.  Then I noticed some starfish and about this time I heard my first seal.  it was so clear and loud you thought they were going to swim right up to you, but alac and alas, they were nowhere to be seen. 

In general I haven’t been doing to much touring this year. I’ve been settling into my job and my schedule 2-12.  I’m hoping to get a bit more done as the season progressed but the Ob Tube has certainly been a highlight and i hope to get to go down there once more before it gets closed down for the season. 

Trail beard!

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 And, our friend made a gif of the published photos:
http://gifninja.com/animatedgifs/407801/bearaway.gif

Day 136 - Bearfence shelter to Pinefield shelter

September 21st 2012
Miles: 20
Total: 1296

Today was a lot warmer than we expected!  We got up at a very reasonable time and were out hiking by 7, but of course we realized that we needed to resupply at a "wayside" (rest stops in the park).  Unfortunately, the store didn't open till 9.  So, we took the opportunity to clean up a bit (hot water at the Lewis campground!).  We managed to wash our socks and undies, charge our accessories, and wash Shannon's hair (well she did that her self) all before the store opened.  Starbucks coffee and bacon egg muffins for second breakfast to boot!

The stop held us up a bit, but it really is such an amazing feeling to take care of errands like that in an effective manner when you are on the trail.  It is what makes town visits so damn exciting!

We headed on from there for about 10 miles before we stopped for lunch at High Top mountain, where luckily we had cell signal.  We moved on to phase two of our efficient task completion, and within the hour we had a hot lunch of chili and Doritos, Shannon got Solomon to replace her boots (thanks Solomon!), Shannon tried to get Soles to replace her inserts (come on Soles, you can do better!), and we set up out next two mails drops with dad Lyon.  Not too shabby!

From that point on out was a pretty easy day with great weather and mild climbs (OH, better yet "mild climbs and climes"!), and we finally have a great water source at the shelter we are in tonight.  There may be a resident copper head, though, but they probably sleep at night...right?  Let's hope that is the case.

Ok, off to bed -we are going to wake up at 5 tomorrow, for real! We are actually going to do it.  No backing out and snoozing till 6.  26 miles to do, not an easy task for lolligaggers.