12 November, 1997

Hi Everyone,

Moving from one place to another always means I get to travel on a new type
of airplane.    We are leaving today for our home for the next couple of
weeks on the ice.   A Hercules (C130) cargo plane operated by the Air
National Guard took us from McMurdo to Siple Dome in about two hours.
The plane looks like a big bulky boat with wings on it.  It has a big door
that covers the whole back end of the plane.  The people who flew the plane
allowed us to go up in the cockpit (the part of the plane that the pilot
flies from) and take pictures.   It is really neat to see the ice sheets
from the view of the pilot.    Sometimes it is hard to tell the difference
between the white ripple ice and the pretty white clouds.    Did you know
that there are names for the type of clouds that we see?    I have seen
cumulus clouds and cirrus clouds.   Can you find these clouds and maybe
others in a book and draw pictures of them?  If you draw a picture of
clouds, please add my planeís picture to your clouds.

The airplane contained a lot of stuff that needed to be dropped at the
place that we were going.   We rode in the noisy plane with earplugs in our
ears to protect them from the noise.   Imagine a bear with earplugs in his
fuzzy ears!  When the plane dropped down to the runway, they drove on the
surface for what seemed like a long period of time.    THEN THEY OPENED THE
BIG BACK DOORS OF THE PLANE.   To my surprise the boxes and even
snowmobiles started to slide on a train track with big rollers on  it
toward the back of the plane.   The stuff rolled out the doors and ended up
on the ground
behind the plane without being broken.  Sometimes when I am allowed to
watch TV, I get to see old war movies and I once saw this happen on one of
them.

When the plane stopped, we walked off the plane through those big open
doors (they didnít drop us off the moving plane).   We had landed on a huge
white ice field that is very flat.   No matter what way we looked , the
land was very flat and very white.   I guess I now can see why people
thought that you could fall off the end of the earth if you went toward the
edge.   The sun here even just rolls around the edge of the white field.
It is just as light outside in the middle of the night as it is in the
middle of the day.

Our big thing for the day was to collect all the science equipment and get
it set to move to the place that we will work for the next couple of weeks.
I really like the fact that I will get to ride the snowmobile everyday.


 of airplane.    We traveled tods to protect them from the loud sounds (but
bears always knew the earth was round).   The sun here New York     It was
really neat but I was glad that they did not drop me out that way too.