A Message Home from Antarctica

Dear Mom & Dad,

Finally made it to Antarctica! It looks like Barrow but with mountains...

I got the wireless network out at camp set up, which works much better than in town if you can believe that (radio from the comms building in McMurdo, relayed from the Golfball (a radio relay station near the Kiwi wind turbines), to us where we have a wireless access point. Now I can check my email and actually do things!

As I said, we made it to camp. Kay L. (she has been coming to help on this project for a long time) and Don B. (the technician that maintains BOB (our "Big Orange Box" hybrid power station) are going to break in camp tonight. Guy T. and Luke B. (the field techs that I work with) and I will head back to town tonight. We'll pick up our food and run some final errands before we go out to camp for good (we'll come back for showers every once in awhile...).

The weather is almost as good as the scenery: currently +20 F with 9 mph winds from 97 degrees N. The sun is shining through the clear sky and there are huge lenticular clouds over Mt. Erebus and Mt. Terror nearby. Here's a picture of the primary vehicle we use to go between town and camp, called a "MAT Track", a lifted F350 with tracks instead of wheels, sitting in front of BOB at camp. Driving the MAT Track is awesome! The steering feels kinda like driving a snow-boat and when the wind is blowing you get the same sort of spray on the windshield. This thing won't get stuck out here!

Anyways, I'm going to go help dig out some gear that overwintered here and then head back into town.

Sun's still up, just like Fairbanks in summer.
Love you!
Drew