A long few days

Well the past few days have been quite long. After our first 12 hour shift ended on Monday morning the whole area went into a condition 2 weather status. The best way to describe this is poor visibility from blowing snow and cold temperatures. With the wind blowing as strong as it was it was hard to stand up straight let alone trying to walk. I got ready to go back to work for my shift at the airfield at 5:30 to find out that due to the weather I wasn't going anywhere. I was told to go to our shop at 6:00 pm for work. After taking care of a few things my team was told to go home till 1:00 am and come back after mid-rats to work. Well at 1:00 I went back to work and got in the last little bit of training and was told to go home around 4:30 am. Trying to stay on a schedule was hard yesterday, my body was telling me to go to bed but I had to fight it off. I was able to stay up till 11:00 pm an took a short nap before mid-rats which helped and fought of going to sleep till almost 7:00 am today. With today being a day off this has not been fun. Tying to find things to do to stay awake with the weather was not fun. The weather has finally cleared but because of all the blowing snow getting around is a little tricky, hopefully once the graders get back out the roads will be easier to walk on and I can look around station a little better on my next day off. As I write this I am trying to stay awake to keep on schedule, hopefully I can keep my self occupied till around 6:00 am for breakfast then go to bed.

A short video I took while walking to work in a Condition 2 storm. You can hear the wind real well.

Now that the storm has passed walking to the coffee shop I was in awe of the views that I can see down here. On my Sunday shift I was able to Mt. Erebus from the airfield and I hope tomorrows shift will give me the same views so I can take some pictures. Living here I realized just how quick the weather can change On Sunday I went to work and it was nice and sunny out, 6 hours later the sun was gone and clouds were coming in. There were 2 incoming flights scheduled and 3 outbound flights scheduled. Only one flight was able to come in, it was a Airbus A-319 bringing in 25 Australians to get sent out to their station. The plan was for them to get onto a LC-130 shortly after their arrival to head to their research station. That did not happen cause of the weather. I was surprised that the plane even landed when it did, let alone it made it out of here. That was just how quick the weather changed, in all about 45 minutes from the time the Airbus landed to the time it took off the pilot took a chance. I got the opportunity to run one of the loaders to assist with the unload of the Airbus. Wow driving a Cat 950G up to the belly of a very expensive piece of equipment was a nerve racking experience. I was glad when I put the loader into reverse to drive way from it knowing that I didn't damage the plane or hurt anyone. I would never have thought with all the time spent on loaders at South Suburban that I would be nervous like that but knowing that I did it successfully helps me when I get the opportunity to unload/load a C-17 or LC-130.

A C-17

The Airbus A-319

The LC-130

A Few Links

Here are a few links to maybe see a little more what goes on here.

This is to a photo library.

http://photolibrary.usap.gov/

A webcam of McMurdo

http://www.usap.gov/videoclipsandmaps/mcmwebcam.cfm

The main United States Antarctic webpage

http://www.usap.gov/usapgov/

My photos on Google+

https://plus.google.com/photos/115756360114717182837/albums/5667203198492314817?hl=en

You should just be able to copy and paste the links into your web browser to see them. Till next time.