South Pole Pictures!

The LC-130 Hercules sleigh ride to the South Pole! Negative forty degrees...




The South Pole sits at an elevation of 9,301 feet on top of approximately a 2 mile thick sheet of ice that is moving toward Africa at the rate of about 30 feet per year.

"The new South Pole station, designed by Ferraro Choi and Associates, is an engineering marvel. To avoid the fate of the two previous stations, the 60,000-sq.-ft. structure (which Polies call the El Station) stands 12 ft. above the surface on 36 columns. When drifts threaten to engulf the station, workers will use 100-ton hydraulic jacks to raise the structure by two full stories (one story about every 15 years), extending its life expectancy until 2050." -Popular Mechanics


That is some expensive siding.




Growth Room in the new South Pole station building.




The old South Pole dome... being retrograded?




Inside the dome it's just being used for storage... I guess it used to have buildings inside for a gym and housing... besides other stuff.




This is where all our tax dollars are going... South Pole signage.




Three hour ride back home... This here is Mike trying to make the perfect scarf.

As if things couldn't get any better...

I'm flying to the South Pole tomorrow! How lucky can one person be?!? I am getting to go on what is called a boondoggle. Boondoggles are a kind of fun excursion/vacation to go see and do things that are usually outside the normal scope of a persons job down here. (And let's face it... the scope of my job is usually inside a cubicle in cubicle land.) I'm pretty dang excited!

To be sure, pictures will be following soon!

The McMurdo Crud

So far I've been avoiding contracting the crud or the flu. My roommate on the other hand has been sick for about two weeks in total since we've gotten down here. Either I've been super lucky, or I have an amazing immune system. I prefer to think the latter, but have a sneaking suspicion that I could be wrong.

The first wave of the flu hit the beginning of the season, the end of October/beginning of November. With all the new people coming down from the states to start off the summer, they brought with them all sorts of yuckies, and since it's like a giant petri-dish down here (the self serve galley, and public use computers...) of course everyone got sick. Medical tried to prevent the spread by quarantining people to their rooms, but since we all get to share rooms with one to five people, of course roommates got sick... and so on and so forth.

This next wave of sickness came in, they say, from New Zealand a couple of weeks ago, which of course wasn't included in the round of vaccines that they offered to us down here at the beginning of the season. This news didn't upset me in the least, as I didn’t get the vaccine since I nearly pass out at the thought of needles.

My poor roommate, Jared (you all might know him as being an old friend of mine from Moscow) was quarantined to our room. He apparently was supposed to have me pick up meals for him, but he didn't tell me this because he was afraid I'd bring him jello, oatmeal and toast for his meals... He has no faith in me when it comes to feeding him apparently. It would have been nice to know, however, that I was in a confined space with a contagious person. I would've slept in the lounge to avoid getting sick.

Well, Jared returned to work about four days ago, and I thought I was home free, but alas... I woke up with a nagging feeling in my head that my health was heading south. The feeling hasn't left yet today... Only tomorrow will tell if the inevitable has finally caught up with me.

No pressure...

Well, since many people have been asking for my address... Here it is again:

Dawn Abbott, RPSC
McMurdo Station
PSC 469, Box 700
APO AP 96599-1035

Be aware that if you feel like mailing a package (! ;) styrofoam is a banned substance in Antarctica. Thanks! Flat mail (any envelope, even the big letter sized ones) comes in on all flights coming on to the ice, so it comes fairly quickly, but packages are low priority and can take over a month to arrive here... But it being summer the weather isn't holding up inbound flights like it was earlier, so it may get here in a few weeks!

Keep in mind that I'm probably leaving the ice around February 11th... If I'm not here to recieve it, it'll just get returned to you... eventually.

Random Pictures

This is Larry, my Operations boss, all dressed up for a Santa flight out to the field camps to spread some holiday cheer.


Here is Icestock 2007. Bands, chili cook off, Sawbucks Coffee, snow, hoola-hoops, good times.

Sawbucks. Aren't the carpenters clever? They served coffee and hot chocolate to keep us warm. Mmmmmmmm

One of the bands... 70's and funk. The best band that performed... although I did miss the bluegrass band when I went home to take a nap... they're dang good too!