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Thursday - November 30, 2000 p.m.
By E. Cheng

Miracle of miracles! The flight that turned back to Christchurch this morning tried again and took off at 2:30 pm. It is scheduled to arrive at McMurdo at 10:05 PM this evening. With luck, we will get the incoming materials soon. I hear reports that the liquid Helium we are waiting for is also on this flight, so that will be very good news.

As far as our flight out is concerned, we were instructed to "bag drag" at 7:30 PM this evening (with only 30 minutes notice!). This process weighs the baggage and persons, and normally tells them what time to report in for the flight tomorrow. For this flight, there is no time to report in yet, and the flight is still oversubscribed. There are over 75 people for a plane that normally carries 40 and can maybe be reconfigured to carry 40 to 60. I am number 53 on the list, so tomorrow will be a hurry up and wait day.

If you haven't figured it out by now, folks running this joint are a little short in the organization department. What they lack here is made up for in enthusiasm (sometimes), but mostly a general lack of consequence if efficiency is not the best.

The cryostat will spend tonight soaking at LN2, and the cooldown process will begin in the morning. This will also allow time for the preamp work to be completed to support the first cold-radiometer tests.

I'm going to bed early tonight ... tomorrow may be taxing.

Thursday - November 30, 2000 a.m.
By E. Cheng

Today, we woke up to another beautiful day, with great expectations of incoming Jim and cargo (and maybe even some more liquid Helium). Upon checking mid-morning, we were encouraged that the flight had actually TAKEN OFF from Christchurch, and the operations folks said they would post the northbound passenger list tonight. (Recall that the flight north is oversubscribed by a factor of two, and we won't know whether we are actually on a flight until the list is posted.)

Only minutes after getting this news, we received a call saying that the flight had turned back to Christchurch because of weather. Indeed, if we look outside, the sky is more cloudy now, but it is not bad weather by any means (yet).

So, there will not be any incoming flights today (even though this is the second day of relatively good weather). I am certain that it is time for the weather to turn bad again ... we have never had more than two good days in a row without a week of storms!

Now, the earliest that Jim can be down here is tomorrow (Friday), and the earliest we can go north is Saturday. No doubt, as time goes on, the list of people going north only increases. For example, if we leave Saturday, that is also the day that Elmer is supposed to leave. Thus, there will surely be a big battle over who gets to go first.

This saga continues ... we will keep you posted. Maybe the Christchurch crew can send what they observe from there.

The cryostat is still cooling. Noise testing is still proceeding. We are keeping very busy (and could use some help when it arrives!). We have given the Christchurch crew a shopping list of things to buy, including a 10 KW generator, a 2000VA UPS, etc. etc. At least they're having fun going shopping.

Elmer and Eun have acquired our second LN2 tank and filled it. Thus, we have two full LS160's now, enough to weather any storm!

Wednesday - November 29, 2000
Evening
By E. Cheng

With no flight coming in today, we confirmed that no one will be departing McMurdo tomorrow. Thus, there is a minimum one day delay in our departure. We were not able to get more information about the priority order for the manifest, which will determine whether we get on the next flight.

After dinner, Eun, Elmer, Gwynne, Dale and I went for a hike up Observation Hill. This is one of the hills next to McMurdo, and it shields McMurdo from the hurricane force winds that come from the south. It is probably slightly less than 1000 feet high, and has an excellent view of the surroundings in all directions except the north, which is blocked by another set of hills. The hike was moderately hard because of the steepness and the snow, but it took less than an hour to get up because it just isn't that high. The view was spectacular, and I am sure that more Elmer pictures are forthcoming.

It was a great evening, and very warm. Water was on the streets at McMurdo, forming little streams all over the place. We were sweating hard during the hike, but we had to be careful because it quite windy at the top and we needed some wind protection. It highlighted the inappropriateness of cotton clothing in the cold when you have to sweat. My jeans and flannel shirt were drenched, and it actually made me quite cold because they kept the wetness against my skin. That plastic thermal underwear stuff they give you really works to wick the moisture away.

Tonight it is time to do some laundry, and to do some packing in the event we get to fly north soon.

Tom was feeling much better today, and is spending the night at Willy Field with Steve and James. Elmer still appears to be a bit under the weather and complains about fatigue. I still have a slight cough and feel coldish, but nothing severe.

Wednesday - November 29, 2000
Mid Afternoon
By E. Cheng

Today, the weather is great! Bright sunshine from the moment we got up, almost no winds, clear skies ... just a beautiful day.

Yet ... the flight from Christchurch to McMurdo that we have been anticipating is still delayed due to weather. Go figure. It is now after 3 pm, the delayed schedule calls for a 3 PM departure, we do not have confirmation that they have taken off yet.

Today we did some research into the trip back. This is becoming relevant because Ken and I are scheduled to leave tomorrow (Thursday), Elmer is leaving on Saturday, and Renee shortly thereafter.

The story is that there is only one airplane carrying people between here and New Zealand. These are now the C-130 "Hercules" turboprops - the C-141's have stopped flying. Each plane can carry 40 passengers plus bags and cargo. When a plane arrives from Christchurch, it disgorges its contents, takes on new contents, and goes back to New Zealand the next day.

Aha, as I type, we hear that the flight from Christchurch is canceled due to unspecified reasons. That means there is no way we can leave tomorrow. But wait ... there is another problem. Because of the recent lack of flights going North, there are now 70 people on the list for this flight. 70 - 40 = 30 means that a significant number will be left behind for yet the next flight, which cannot possibly happen until two days after (the time for a return trip to/from Christchurch). Thus, I estimate that we can leave here on Friday at the earliest, and Sunday if we are bumped. Also ... no Jim and no boxes tonight!

The warm weather is very pleasant. It is actually warm when you walk outside in just your fleece. The roads are nice because all the trucks are working on them. One can go for a hike. All these good things.

However, there is one drawback. When it is "warm" out, the conditions inside the outhouse are much more active, making the potty experience rather unpleasant. In fact, one of the outhouses here at Willy Field has been "full" for a few days. I hear they are making a new hole today sometime. This will be amusing ...

It has often occurred to us that there is a major inconsistency in the way we approach our refuse in Antarctica. All the trash is carefully recycled and categorized to be brought by boat to Washington state, where it is recycled. However, the sewage at McMurdo (a bustling town of almost 1000 right now) is simply ground up and dumped into the sea. (In fact, it is dumped alarmingly close to the inlet to the water plant, but that's another story.) For the more remote locations like Willy Field, we are doing our business into a deep hole in the ice, which is covered over when it is full. Sometimes, the bulldozers clearing the snow run over an old hole making big brown mess on pristine white snow. Go figure ...

Well, if we are lucky today, we will see a new hole being made! Elmer, too bad you went into town early. This has got to be a photo-op. I hear they drill a small hole, dump in a pile of gasoline, light it up, and melt a new hole. This sounds incredible to me, and it can't possibly work very well so maybe it's just another lie.

We are still out the big UPS. No one knows what is wrong with it. It just does not work. Major changes and tests are going on with the preamps. There have been big improvements in the noise performance. The radiometer is getting cold (it is sitting at LN2). We are being patient at LN2 because we are very short on LHe ... another ramification of having no incoming flights. We have uncovered and are solving a problem with the SCSI disks on the flight and simulator bottom systems. Ken is arranging for another set of flight batteries before he leaves.

Monday - November 27, 2000
My Sea Ice Adventure
By R. Silverberg

Having completed snow school (Happy camper), I was told that I was now eligible to take the next course--training in sea ice (Ice is much harder than snow). Although I had signed up for it, there were no openings until Sunday night when I got an email saying there was an opening the next day.

Everything was going smoothly and it was a beautiful sunny day when 9 of us left McMurdo at 0920 on a Haaglunds, (a tracked vehicle that goes about anywhere and floats- at least until the mechanic who spilled oil in it decided to make a drainage port with his drill) to go out on the sea ice to learn about it. I learned how it forms, how it grows, how it cracks, where it cracks, when it cracks, what makes it crack, how it heals, when it is safe to walk, snowmobile, drive a van, drive a Haaglunds, drive a bulldozer, drive a Delta, land a C141, ...... on the sea ice. In short, more than I ever wanted to know about sea ice.

We then went further out onto the ice and stopped at an iceberg that had been frozen into the sea ice before it could escape into the open sea. We proceeded to get out and started climbing onto the iceberg (about a 30 ft high iceberg---but remember about 90% is under the water--sea ice in this case) and then we all slide down to get back to the sea level.

We all began noticing that the wind had started to pickup. After stopping to do a test drilling into the sea ice to convince ourselves that is was safe, our next stop was to be Cape Evans, where Scott had started his trek to the Pole--an historic place. This was a little bonus for us because we had a little extra time. We had skipped the tent training because many of us campers knew how to setup a tent with the only difference being that on the sea ice we use ice screws instead of snow anchors. As we were driving the wind continued to pickup and the snow covering the ice began to swirl around a bit. As you might have guessed by now, by the time we got to Cape Evans the winds were about 30 knots and it was getting difficult to see more than one or two of the flags ahead marking our path. Since I was sitting next to the driver, I became the flag spotter and was telling the instructor, Thai, to go left-right-etc, so we stayed on the flagged path. He then started to tell me that he had brought his portable GPS unit so I shouldn't have to do that for him---so I stopped. A few minutes later I see that the flags are starting to disappear because he is driving off to the right using the GPs unit! I tell him this fact. When he looks up from his GPs unit he notices that I am correct. He starts fumbling with the GPs unit and notices that the antenna is partially off because it is loose; the GPs is only updating irregularly unless he diddles with the antenna, so he says that I should resume telling him when he strays from the path. Thai fiddles with the GPs and we go to the left and find the flagged path again.

Before we arrive at Cape Evans, we stop and take a picture of a large Weddell seal which was sunbathing in this strange partial whiteout. Despite the conditions at eye level, there is still blue sky above. When we get back into the Haaglunds we notice that the heat is not functioning any longer. This is not much of a problem because all of us are wearing our ECW gear and we are pretty comfortable. However, we soon learn that heater is also used for the window defroster. Because Thai needs his hands for steering, manipulating the GPs, fiddling with its antenna, and manipulating his video camera to record this trip, I take the additional responsibility of defrosting the windows periodically as well as spotting the flags and giving directions.

We arrive at Cape Evans and then Scott's Cape Evans hut. As we get out of the Haaglunds we notice that we have to lean forward and get lots of snow in our faces in order to make progress toward the hut, which is windward. Everything in the hut is extremely well preserved including their Heinz ketchup bottles, slabs of seal meat for the dogs, and their stable (I have seen how much horses eat when they are cold, so I am amazed that they brought horses here. One of the other students tells me that when they ran out of food for the horses, the horses became their food.) After completing this brief tour, we start the trek back towards McMurdo.

The wind is now howling and despite the previously perfect blue sky above, everything has now turned white. I assume my previous position and start flag-spotting, direction-giving and window-defrosting. After about 1.25 hours crawling at about 10 mph, we are about 3/4 way back to McMurdo when the radio goes on and there is a distress call form a group of people on snowmobiles who are out near Cape Royds--about an hour further out than we were at Cape Evans at our speed--that are having trouble with one of their four snowmobiles. They are cold and having trouble making progress in the whiteout. They are requesting assistance. Beside being an instructor, Thai is also with the search and rescue folks and our Haaglunds is the type of vehicle they would use for one of these ice rescues.

Yes, you guessed it. After some talking on the radio with the snowmobilers and MacOps, Thai tells us that we are the nearest vehicle that could help them and we have to go rescue them. There is no time to drop us off at McMurdo, so we turn around and go back into the building whiteout.

The snowmobilers say they think they can make it as far as Cape Evans where there is a fishing hut (heated) in which that they will wait for us. By now, the snow has started to fall harder and the winds have picked up further. We can hardly see. I continue to guide Thai from one flag to the next while he keeps making the GPs update to figure out where we are and where to turn. We finally make it to the fishing hut where the 10 people are waiting for us. It is now 1900 hours. We radio into MacOps that we have located the people in distress and will be late getting back so they don't send out people looking for both us and them.

We attach the inoperative snowmobile to a tow line and prepare to drag it behind us. Because the Haaglunds is too small to accommodate all 19 of us and we don't want to leave the snowmobiles or tow them all, some of the people decide to continue on the three fully functional snowmobiles, two with sleds, while a few cold snowmobilers join us in the warmer, but unheated, Haaglunds. The Haaglunds is a vehicle that is in two pieces--like a train with a locomotive and then cars--in this case only one car. There is some concern that the towed unmanned snowmobile will turn over, so Thai asks me to ride in the back part of the Haaglunds and take a radio with me so I can tell him if anything bad happens to the snowmobile we are towing. I say OK, hop in the back and we start going.

The people on the snowmobiles are following us because of the poor visibility and the fact that one of the three working snowmobiles is starting to show signs of trouble also. Since I had gotten used to looking for flags, I notice that I don't see any and I can sometimes hardly see the snowmobile we are towing only 15 feet behind us. About 3 minutes into this journey the Haaglunds stops. Thai comes around to the back car and tells me he doesn't like his new flag spotter and he asks me whether I would swap with the person up front and resume my previously assigned functions. Of course, I say OK and hand the radio to someone else.

After about an 1/2 hour of this arduous trek back, I start to take over the duties of the defroster more vigorously. We have added many more people, so they seem to generate a lot more moisture. At one point, I see something big and brown in front of us. I tell Thai to look out for that big thing and ask him what is that? He tells me that is a seal, perhaps the one we photographed earlier, right in the middle of the road and he steers around it. We then get a radio call from the snowmobiles following us again; they ask that we stop. We get out and talk with them and they tell us that a second snowmobile is quitting with carb icing problems. They want to put some more people in the Haaglunds and have us tow the second snowmobile behind the first. Thai and I help attach it to the back of the other snowmobile and a few more people get into the rear car of the Haaglunds. We are now a four car train followed by the two working snowmobiles with sleds. Must be quite a sight, but I can't see it all at once.

Conditions are not getting any better and the snow continues to fall heavily. Since they got rid of the second ailing snowmobile, the snowmobilers now radio us that they have decided to go ahead of us because they can go faster (about 20 mph or faster if they dare) compared to the ~10 mph that we are able to maintain on the loose snow over the sea ice. We again call into McMurdo to tell them that all is well, but that the going is slow and ask them to hold dinner for us.

At about 2215 hours, we finally pull into the McMurdo area and drop off the two failed snowmobiles near the ice runway road. As we are doing that we notice a pinkish liquid dripping from the Haaglunds. Thai recognizes this as the hydraulic steering fluid after which he attempts to make the final turn into McMurdo (unsuccessfully). So we now have to either walk uphill with all our ECW gear about 1/2 mile--we were close-- or repair the Haaglunds, at least temporarily. Thai says that he has some hydraulic fluid, so one other fellow and I help Thai open the hood and dump some of the fluid into the reservoir--repairing things isn't that easy when you are wearing all this stuff and it's cold, windy, and snowing. Although it is leaking badly, we manage the last 1/2 mile back to the galley where our supper is waiting as promised.

Well, that was my day yesterday. I learned an enormous amount about Antarctica, about how quickly the weather can turn, the sea ice, and icebergs. I helped rescue some snowmobilers, rigged up two snowmobiles for towing behind a Haaglunds, guided the Haaglunds back to McMurdo in a whiteout, did temporary repairs to the Haaglunds and then had a warm supper awaiting me at 2230 hours. Sorry, although I tore it apart and tried (yes we checked the fuse), I couldn't figure out how to make that defroster work again with just snow and ice as my tools and supplies. I guess I should leave something for the vehicle maintenance people to do or take the next course in this sequence.

Tuesday - November 28, 2000
Early p.m.
By E. Cheng

We had another exciting commute morning, waking up to Condition 1 at Willy Field, which then improved to Condition 2. One van left at 7:30 am and had to turn back. They were going to try again at noon, but I think they are not going to make it today.

Elmer, Eun and EC worked frantically all morning to get a new tank of LN2 out to Willy Field. Originally, this involved getting a pickup truck, loading a tank onto the back, and driving it out. Sounds simple, huh? Well, in the snow conditions of this morning, a pickup truck could not possibly have made it.

Consequently, Elmer worked hard on getting a Spryte - a tracked vehicle (like a tank) that holds 4 or 5 passengers in the cab, and has a flatbed in the back. OK, so we drive to the pickup spot and find the LN2 tank. Of course, it is empty! We find out where to get it refilled - a difficult task when all the people who deal with LN2 are now stuck at CHC waiting for the airplanes to fly in. Nevertheless, we patch together enough information to do this. By the time we are ready to drive out, it is practically lunch time. The drive itself also takes about 1 hour in these slow vehicles. Well - at least now we have LN2 at the lab.

Bob went to sea ice school yesterday, and did not return until many hours after the scheduled time. It turns out their class had to run another 15 miles off onto the ice to rescue four snowmobiles that were stuck because a carburetor froze. I don't know what these people thought they were doing out in the middle of nowhere with just snowmobiles. I got to see a movie of it late that evening because the instructor came into the lounge and wanted to show a tape of his day to his friends. They had a really windy and nasty time. The weather in town was not really anywhere near that bad. Thins can be very different only a few miles away.

Today, the power seems to be very unreliable still. In addition, the Uninterruptable Power Supply seems to be broken, and producing no power, even when the generators are still running! JFX calls these the Unreliable Power Supplies. Another worrisome development is that our leak checker pump appears to not like the power we are getting today. We need our pumps in order to work!

I spoke with Tammy today, and I hear that Dave Cottingham and other travelers may have had an adventure getting to Christchurch. Evidently, their plane from Denver had mechanical difficulties, and they missed their flight to Auckland. It is also not clear if they still have a flight from Auckland to Christchurch. Good luck, guys!

As expected, no flights are arriving today. We are at Condition 2, and there are probably still the same concerns about the solar flares. We are making as much progress as possible, given the power and transportation problems. Perhaps flights will start arriving tomorrow (Wednesday).

Time to do a little work, and then it is time to plan the commute back into town again! What fun ...

Monday - November 27, 2000 p.m.
By E. Cheng

We had more power outages today, as the crew attempted to get our normal generators back on line. I think this has only been partially successful. The equipment is old. We did take the opportunity to straighten out our UPS situation, and it appears that the computers and the gondola are able to weather these outages now.

Most of the excitement today is in getting the cryostat ready for pumpdown. As Dale reported earlier, this is happening now, after the horn position measurements were completed.

Bob went to sea ice school today, and so there was little progress on the software glitch problem. This will be an area of focus tomorrow.

Elmer is feeling better after a day off, but Tom is now feeling poorly. Seems like getting sick after about a week down here is pretty standard. I discover that they have Echinacea at the store here! This should have been a big clue.

As expected, no flights arrived today. Almost all of the travellers should now be in Christchurch, awaiting the next flight. I have now lost the title of "longest wait at Christchurch" to Jim.

I am beginning to be concerned about our Northbound travellers. Ken and I are scheduled to leave on 11/30, and Elmer is scheduled for 12/2. With over a week of backlogged flights, it seems that some delay is inevitable. We shall see. I am getting a little impatient about this transportation issue. Steve and I sent a letter off to the local management, mostly to get things down for the record. Who knows ... perhaps a miracle will happen.

Tonight, I was feeling so tired that I let Eun talk me into going to the gym with him. He wussed me into power lifting at the press. I will surely be incapacitated tomorrow ... so much so that I may not even be able to type!

Dale, Steve, Jeff, and James stayed at the lab tonight to watch over the cryostat.

Monday - November 27, 2000 a.m.
By E. Cheng

We have made some progress identifying the source of the mysterious periodic glitch in the data. Bob and Peter changed the rate of the "filler" TM frames and the glitch also changed rate. We now know this is a software artifact and will look further to fix it. It is not a *simple* software artifact because it appears to have some effect on the digital filter, which happens before the filler frames are added.

Last night, we did not take any noise data because of an unscheduled power outage. It left the computers in a strange state, and blew out a power supply. Nothing terribly critical, just lost time.

Today, Elmer and Gwynne stayed in town because they are not feeling well. I have been rather tired as well, and Eun has been complaining about being sick ever since he got here. Just like dorm life, bugs are rather sociable down here. I would recommend taking Echinacea here.

I spent hours trying to come into work, finally arriving around 11 am after much hurrying up and waiting. This is becoming a daily routine!

This morning, we find out that flights from CHC have been canceled for the next 24 to 48 hours due to solar flares. Thus, Jim and Grant and DC and Alex will probably all arrive together later this week.

Miracle of miracles, I rode to work this morning with the cryostat box (we have not yet been able to confirm that it still contains a cryostat). Evidently, a plane DID arrive yesterday, but it carried only critical cargo (and not people). This will get us started on the cryostat preparation front, and hopefully, our LHe will arrive before our meager supply here runs out. Jim says he has it at CHC!

This morning was the first in almost a week that I saw the Sun. It will not last, since we are supposed to get cloudy again today. Fortunately, we hear a lot of noises outside from all the heavy equipment grooming the roads and passageways. Driving around is getting easier again.

Sunday - November 26, 2000 p.m.
By E. Cheng

Those who came back to town last night, got out to work around noon. The driving was difficult, but not particularly exciting. We have made a movie of the drive for all to enjoy.

I took advantage of the morning in town to buy some postcards and patches. I can't believe I spent $80 on this stuff! Sunday brunch was good, especially since we are still eating the goodies from Thanksgiving dinner.

We got confirmation from Jim, who is still at Christchurch, that they tried, but did not, fly today. Given the situation here, and the shortage of staff to plow the runway, this is not surprising.

We put in a good day's work today, especially since it is rather quiet because of the holiday. More noise debugging is going on, and Dale has stayed out there to take more quiet data. Elmer and Eun claim to be ready for the cryostat to arrive, hopefully tomorrow.

James has replaced the caps on one of the preamps, and we will check its performance tonight. We are still looking for the source of the mysterious glitch that occurs periodically in the TM.

The drive back was uneventful. Elmer is getting too good at this!

Sunday - November 26, 2000 a.m.
By E. Cheng

I got up this morning and it was snowing. Yes, really snowing, and not the 30 knot wind, "blow all the snow around" variety. It is now very peaceful here. Of course, this could also be because most folks here are still asleep. Sunday is the traditional day off, and since this Sunday is Thanksgiving Day weekend, things will certainly be a bit slow. In fact, there were a total of zero vans providing transportation to Willy Field this morning.

Fortunately, one of the vans is sitting in town, and I will nudge Elmer to attempt to drive to Willy Field later. He seems excited about having brunch so maybe we'll head in after that. This all in spite of Eun's woozy view of any sort of inclement weather!

The snow is not terribly threatening, but it does cut into visibility quite a bit. It seems certain that there will be no flights coming in today, at least not until very late tonight or early tomorrow.

Yesterday, after Thanksgiving dinner, a group of us went walking around town to aid digestion. It was necessary. One of the things we did was go to the McMurdo Aquarium. The aquarium is not large, but has an array of very unusual fish from this area. They all live in ice-cold water. The most spectacular one is one we actually ate for Thanksgiving day dinner ... Antarctic Cod. There were several examples of this fish in the tank (I think these are the ones we eat). They are over 3 feet long, and weigh over 100 pounds ... some are closer to 150 pounds. They are caught with long lines since they live 3000 feet under the surface. They have huge mouths with teeth, and if you lean over the tank, they will come right up to you and "kiss" you.

Well ... gotta go. Now there is a rumor that there is a van at 9 am going out to the lab ... rumors are so time consuming ... they all need to get checked out!

Saturday - November 25, 2000 p.m.
By E. Cheng

Today was fairly productive, in spite of disruptions caused by Thanksgiving dinner. Steve et al. have been doing more noise debugging. A short TDRSS end-to-end test was successfully completed today.

Several of us came back into town for early Thanksgiving dinner. Some of us stayed behind at Willy Field, and still others came back for later dinner. There are several "seatings" scheduled to make sure everyone gets a seat. The food is traditional Thanksgiving day food, and is quite good. Though, of course, not as good as Dave Cottingham's.

Driving back and forth today is still a bit hairy, though Elmer is doing a great job. Somehow, he has become our designated driver. The difficulties with this drive are so hard to describe adequately that he and Gwynne are going to try to make a movie of it tonight. This should make the trip easier to understand. The weather has been reasonable today ... the problems are all caused by snow drifts and the fact the "roads" have not been cleared, probably because of the holidays.

Tomorrow, the entire place has a holiday, so it should be even quieter. We'll see how we get out to work (and back) ... probably via Elmer-van.

Saturday - November 25, 2000 a.m.
By E. Cheng

We made it into work again today, but not without excitement. While the weather conditions are "normal" at all locations right now, there was a significant amount of wind last night, causing some pretty severe snow drifts along the road to Willy Field. Even with Elmer's steady hand, we almost got stuck three times on the way out here. The originally planned driver for our van did not want to drive this morning.

This afternoon, we anticipate more excitement as we try to head back into town for Thanksgiving day dinner. Some are at 3 p.m. and others later. Imagine the logistical negotiation possibilities!

In fact there are no flights coming in today. Anyone who is still at work is cleaning off the runways, but the place is close to shut down. McMurdo *is* a US base, and this *is* Thanksgiving.

Friday - November 24, 2000 p.m.
By E. Cheng

Well, in spite of what we were told, there is no airplane arriving today, and thus there is no Jim and no cryostat (also no LHe, but without a cryostat, that hardly matters). The day in fact looked like it was clearing for a while, and then the winds started blowing again near 5 pm. One of the two vans bringing us back for dinner got stuck twice coming back into town. The other one drove so fast that we would either make it, or not make it at all. The wind was quite ferocious ... it was a challenge walking out to the van at Willy Field ... I got blown over once after I lost my footing in a snow depression, and you have to walk leaning very forward.

After we got back to McMurdo, and after dinner, everything seemed to calm own. It is now clearing and quite warm out. This weather is extremely variable!

The story is that tomorrow, there will be no flights (in observance of Thanksgiving). Instead, we have to deal with how we will be going to work and come back for Thanksgiving dinner, which for some is scheduled for 3 PM This will be a challenge.

The earliest that flights can be expected is Sunday. However, there are more weather rumors that Sunday may be too variable to fly, and perhaps Monday morning is the more likely possibility. We'll just have to see.

Meanwhile, Steve and some folks have stayed at Willy Field again to take more noise data while the crew is not there. Very useful work is being done debugging system noise, but what we really need now is an airplane to bring us a cryostat and some cryogen.

Friday - November 24, 2000 a.m.
By E. Cheng

We made it into work today, although the commute was quite challenging. The winds were quite strong, but not as bad as last night when we went back into town. They are clearing off some runways today, and we think a flight is actually trying to come in. If so, it may bring people and/or equipment for us. We never know until the flight arrives.

Today's big discussion is how the Thanksgiving dinner tomorrow will be conducted. It is amazing how even the most trivial matters become issues of contention around here. (Yesterday and for the past weeks, it has been the shuttle between town and Willy Field. You can read an effect from this in a previous email from Eun.) I attribute this unaccommodating behavior to insufficient showers, poor potties, and insufficient time spent at the gym.

The weather is not great, but it appears to be improving. The fact that they even started a flight from Christchurch is encouraging.

Hopefully, we'll get a good day's work done today, and the cryostats will arrive tonight.

Thursday - November 23, 2000
By E. Cheng

Today, the weather was not so great in the morning ... overcast and gloomy. We had no trouble getting to work except for the commuting excitement that Elmer has described in pictures on the Website (one of the vans nearly went off a cliff).

Work was going well, and around 4 PM, the building started shaking and the wind was battering Willy Field. It got to be difficult to open the door to get out!

We got two shuttles to bring us back to town before the conditions got worse. This is the first place I've been where you have to drive with a significant wind correction to the steering. It appears that this weather may get worse, and even transportation tomorrow may be an issue. Steve and several other brave souls are spending the night there. I was not yet prepared to put snow school theory into practice.

So much for getting our equipment in by plane tomorrow. I think it is unlikely that the stuff we are looking for will be getting here until Monday. Fortunately, we are not entirely out of things to do here, but they are not the most important things to do right now.

We have a computer link in our rooms, so unless the machine s at Willy Field go down for some reason, we can still work on them.

Wednesday - November 22, 2000
By E. Cheng

For the past two days, myself and three others in our group (Bezaire, Crawford,and Fixsen) went to snow school. This is an interesting requirement of working at our work site, which is considered to be far enough away from McMurdo Station (8 miles) that we could be caught in a storm and be in trouble if we did not know how to survive in the cold. In fact, some in our group have already been trapped there when a storm came in a couple of weeks ago. However, the class is more geared towards those who actually go to some remote place in Antarctica for research (geology/biology/and who knows what else), and who are likely to be out of contact with a real town for weeks on end. People who like to do this are really strange!

In snow school, you get to use all the Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) Equipment that they give you (two medium-sized orange bags worth). In addition, You get to build snow shelters to shield you from the storm, and then you Spend the night in these shelters. How often does one get to go camping in Antarctica! In fact, this is not even *winter* camping in Antarctica, this is well into springtime.

Building the snow walls and snow caves are really backbreaking work! There were 14 of us in the class. We built from about 1 PM to 5:30 PM Then the instructor left us and we completed things for another hour. After that, it's dinner, and then I could barely wait to get to sleep (in bed by 8:30 PM). Using all the equipment that we get, it is not uncomfortable. In fact, I was sweating profusely during the night and had to open up my sleeping bag. The main problem was deciding whether or not to get up to pee at 2 am. After deliberating with myself for an HOUR, I decided to pee. It was cold out, but not terrible. After peeing, I sleep soundly until 7:30 am. A good night's sleep, but we were all exhausted.

The next day, we got a whole bunch of lectures and other small exercises, but these were no where near as exciting as building all the snow structures, and we all had trouble staying awake.

On the afternoon of the second day, we returned to McMurdo "town", take a well deserved hot shower, and eat voraciously at dinner.

Questions that may come to mind:

1. How is the potty? It is an outhouse just like at our work site. However, this one is in a more exposed area, so the wind is rather daunting. It is not a comfy place, but it is functional.

2. Where do you sleep? There are several kinds of snow shelter structures that are made during the first day. Some are like caves so you sleep inside them. Others are walls that surround some tents, so you sleep in the tents. They give you double pads, an insulating layer, and gigantic sleeping bags rated for -20F. It is not really that cold out (when one is sheltered from the wind), so this is plenty.

3. What do you eat? Camp food. Water is brought, and/or made from melted snow. Freeze-dried foods are then prepared with the hot water. I must admit I tried to eat a minimal amount in order to avoid having to go big potty while out there. Some ate quite vigorously.

All in all, this was a unique and very different experience. I'll put the pictures on the Web site for all to peruse. What you don't see is how sore and tired we got! It will take a few days to wear off.