6 December, 1997

Sat. Dec. 6th,

Hi Everyone,

One more cold night if you want to call it a night. At 11:00 PM when I hit the snowmobile shed bedroom it was beautiful out. Bright sunshine and no wind. I should have realized what was going to happen to the temperature. My water bottle was frozen like a rock this morning. Stayed in the bag a little longer because I knew what getting up was going to be like. Dressed quickly and ran to the hut and , boy ,Scott was preparing (crepe Chez Bonney) like a pancake almost but with lots of stuff mixed in it. Excellent start to the day. We really cleaned up the hut and outhouse because two reporters from the Rocky Mountain News, a Denver newspaper were coming to do a story about us. Several of the students including the really big project leader are from Colorado State and the paper wanted a story about their research and living conditions. The reporters arrived and we loaded up the ATV and took off for Blood Falls, named because the ice is red from all the iron in the water. There is lots of other material because it was still liquid at 20 degrees f. The reporters did an extensive interview with Keith about his project. I hope that they mention "Teachers Experiencing Antarctica" also.

They left for a helo at 4:00, Keith and I follow a half hour later. We dropped Keith off at Lake Hoare and I continued on to McMurdo for the weekend. Not an easy trip. We were fighting a snow squall and went around it. Picked up two more people at other camps and took a New Zealand parcticipant to his countries camp, Scott Base. I got nearly an hour and a half of helo time in getting everybody back here for the Sunday day off. A little excitement coming in, the pilot saw something red on the ice miles from shore near the open ocean. We investigated and did not find a body, just a jacket that we all wear. Probably blew there from who knows how long ago. Since we were near the ice edge again we saw lots of penguins and seals and killer whales. I need another clean up and laundry up. Get caught up on e-mail and lab work tomorrow. Sleeping in a nice warm room tonight. I'm OK, doing fine. See ya