guess what i saw...

Thanks to winfly flights my Kwaj friend Amber is now happily living here in Antarctica. Today we took a walk down to Discover Hut and guess what I saw for the first time in many many months.... I could not believe it. I asked Amber if that was really what I thought it was....sure enough, off in the distance you could see the actual yellow ball!!!!

me and Amber with frozen eyelashes this smile is a result of seriously just seeing the big yellow ball!!!
its really there....

is that the....sun?

We have not yet seen this in "town" but got confirmation that you can indeed see the mystery sun from the runway. Its a beautiful site!!!!

following the plane

when you see this










then you see this










and then you see this!!!!

Recent South Pole Auroras

These were taken in the past couple days down at the South Pole. (they are 800 miles south of us)

the best orange ever....

after not having one for 6 months...this sure tasted good

a going away present....

lots and lots of practical jokes go on down here. Just this week my room was toilet papered, another night my bed was moved and today I was given a very special gift of a "pee bottle" and wet shower towell.

Winfly Begins!!!!

Today at 11:56 am, the 1st plane of the winter landed here at McMurdo. The last flight out was Feb 28th so its been roughly 6 months without much change. Today 16 "winterovers" left and 120 new people came in. This is pretty insane!!!

this is the plane out, 18 miles out of town on the ice runway.







a very welcome site!!!




























lots of new red parkas in town and it didnt take but 10 minutes before Tad was spotted messing with peoples jackets. Either changing out the name tag, moving them or whatever....the new people better watch out for us toasty old winterovers.

winter graduation

some of the beards grown this winter











Here is me getting my "winter diploma". they got us all together and thanked us for spending a winter in Antarctica supporting science.

the official sunrise report

the sun "officially came up on Friday" but we have not seen it yet...hopefully soon. It came up at 12:28 pm and went back down at 1:28 pm.

building a runway out of ice...

10,000 feet of runway made out of ice...all ready for the big winfly plan arrival. There will be 4 planes coming in next week and then the runway will get shut down again until October. McMurdo International

packing down the road

Nacreous Clouds

Yesterdays sky was filled with these unbelivable nacreous clouds

opening the runway

They are out opening the Pegasus runway and had a full moon to work under yesterday Its very exciting seeing the lights out on the ice shelf!!! There will be 4 flights landing here in 10 days and then will shut down again until early October.

miscellaneous pics

This was a very spirited and costumed badminton tournament dancing the winter away
locally grown and the only green thing down here on the white planet