Extreme weather, sponsored by mountain dew

The past two morning, the weather has been pretty extreme. It's been -25 F and the wind has been howling, kicking the temperatures down to -60 F. I'm still not wearing "Big Red" yet, "little red" combined with a fleece, windpants and a facemask have done the trick but I'm starting to feel the cold. The visibility was really bad this morning. I could only see about 2 flags ahead of me (each flag is probably 100 feet or so). It's a good thing there was somebody about 250 feet ahead of me wearing a big red parka so I could follow him. On the way back to the station (which was not visible from the 1km away lab) I started to veer off course because I couldn't see the flags. I only went a little bit out of the way before realizing. The lab was white, covered with the blowing snow instead of its usual blue. At about noon, though, the weather has been clearing up.

The station is winding down. Only about 100 people here, down from the 250 person capacity. It's like a ghost town. It feels pretty cool. With the extreme weather, small population, 24 hour sun, and strange landscape, it sometimes really feels like I'm on a distant planet. This, of course, makes the nerdy sci-fi part of me extremely happy. This is especially true when I'm riding on the back of a snowmobile to or from the lab and can really look at all the nothingness whizzing by. I've posted some pics below taken about 3 days ago (or 2... the days really run together here) of the view from the galley. When the wind blows like this, it carries small currents of snow that make the ice look like it's dancing. It's really breathtaking. I love staring out of the galley windows whenever I get the chance.



A picture of the ceremonial pole.



You can see the wind if you look carefully. It looks like it's coming straight from the sun. This was about 9 at night. Maybe even 10.

Damn near froze my toes off!

Wednesday night was soccer (although it was just two of us) and afterwards, I went out to the pole in just my soccer jersey. I really wanted to take a picture wearing my team's jersey and then send it back to our sponsor. If that doesn't get me free beer, I don't know what will! After that, since I was lightly clothed, I took what's known as the hero shot. Well, not the full hero shot. I kept my shorts on...

Thursday was one of the guys in my group's last day and so I had a lot of work to do before he left. It was a full day but afterwards, I relaxed with some beers and a movie. I watched Appaloosa. It was pretty good.

Today, I got some good analysis work done that had been giving me trouble all week. Later, I watched Bananas and laughed until my sides hurt.

It's that time of the season where everyone is leaving. It's kind of depressing, but I'm really enjoying it here (though I do miss trees and weather). At around 10:30 tonight, the Keck collaboration asked me to help out while they put a giant mirror on their telescope. I damn near froze my fingers and toes off. I didn't realize we would be working outside for that long and didn't exactly dress appropriately. On the way back, I was riding on the back of a snowmobile and looking out at the reflection of the sun off the hard-pack and just thought about how amazing it is that I'm here. I get to tell about this for the rest of my life! It's very special to be able to come here.

I'm trying to post pictures, but it's just not working out. I'll keep working on it.