9 November, 1998

Monday, November 11, 1998

Yesterday was Sunday and the nice snowy weather brought back childhood memories of hot cocoa, snow-ball fights, shovelling snow, and building snow forts in New England. I love the snow and we didn't have much in Virginia last winter so it was nice to go outside and feel it on my face again.

By the time our inspiring church service was over (in the Chapel of the Snows) about 1 inch of snow had accumulated. This isn't much, but when the wind picked up, it all became resuspended in the air and whipped up into a mild blizzard. At times it was so thick I could only see as far as the next building. Some groups who had planned to go out fishing or diving for their research projects had to cancel their plans because of the poor visibility. I was glad we had done our fishing trip on Saturday. Blizzard conditions here can become so severe that ropes are strung from the dorms to the cafeteria to the Crary lab so people can find their way around. It was not that bad yesterday but I hope we get to experience this once before I leave.

After lunch I finished counting the cells I photographed on Friday, caught up on my journal, organized my digital photos, did some reading about Antarctica, and chatted with a couple other TEAs (Betty Trummel and Elissa Elliott) and the boy scout (Ben Hasse) Check out Ben's journal which has some neat pictures from me and from Elissa Elliott at http://expert.cc.purdue.edu/~bjhasse

So it was pretty laid-back day.

Today it is back to lab-work in the morning and then fishing through the ice in front of McMurdo in the afternoon. Sierra and Ed need lots more fish to finish their research which ends just before Christmas. The fish need to adjust to their environment in the lab for a few weeks before the experiments can be done.

Peter Hillary the son of Sir Edmund Hillary who is famous because of his ascent of Mt. Everest is skiing to the South Pole. He arrived here the same day I did and started his trek a couple days later. Check out his journal and photos on the website: http://www.icetrek.org

Today feels like Monday morning, but the view of the Royal Society Range with its new dusting of snow is parcticularly breath-taking in the early morning light today.

Not much other news, but it looks like it will be about a 16 hour workday for me today.

I hope you have a good day and do something good for someone.

Fred Atwood

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