12-15
Antarctica is a paradise for skate skiing, well at least here. Out on the ice shelf, it's perfectly flat, it's good snow, and as the roads lead to the airport, they are perfectly groomed. They opened up the snow roads to pegasus recently, so I've been doing a lot of skate skiing. 3 days in a row the last week. It's been gorgeous with no winds and warm (25-30F) temps. I've been finding my old form from last year and even did a couple of miles under 5 minute mile pace on my ski yesterday.
3 days ago when Elisha and I headed out to ski the the LDB/Pegasus road, the shuttle van we were in got hopelessly stuck (it's back to that Plagusus time of year for shuttles with the warm temps), so we just hopped out and skied longer than originally planned. There was another skier on the shuttle and as he said, "skiing is really the only way to travel in Antarctica" I believe shuttle shelly was stuck for more than 1/2 an hour as she waited for a snowcat to come pull her out
But really, on the snowroads, cruising along on skis, feeling the glide, breathing in the cold fresh air, and looking at the gorgeous view, there is nothing better. The skate skiing is so good here, that it can almost feel like downhill skiing, and you can often get going really fast if you have the wind to your back and use the shuttle to your advantage to always go with the wind. THough the last 3 days have been completely windless!
Last weekend, Elisha and I walked the castle rock loop and hiked to the top of Castle Rock (even though it was officially closed). On the way back down, Elisha snowboarded and I attempted telemarking, though I think the skis were pretty crummy bc I had trouble making turns without sliding too much. I think I"ll turn in my tele skis for a snowboard for next time bc she seemed to be able to grip onto the hard snow pretty well. We ran into Jules (Lael's aunt) up sunning herself at one of the apple shelters. She told us she was going to try and get another tracked vehicle (as another dept stole her snow cat) to start grooming part of the road and get rid of the hard snowdrifts.
A couple of days ago, we went into the galley kitchen and baked gingerbread. Cassa, Elisha, and I have a design in mind for our gingerbread house decoration this year, so we were cutting out shapes to fit that purpose. It was fun making and baking the gingerbread even though we were in a rush to make it out to catch the shuttle to LDB to ski. But we did have a lot of fun and managed to sneak quite a lot of bites of gingerbread dough. Tasty! I really enjoyed the rolling out and cutting of the dough bc it brought me right back to Christmas at my house with my mom and brother where it was a tradition to make Christmas cookies with special shapes. Those were some of the best Christmas times and incorporate some of my fondest memories. Those are some of the things I miss most about Christmas with my family.
This Sunday at the science lecture that I am in charge of overseeing, a guy named Mark Devlin will likely be speaking. Actually one of his partners will be giving the main speech, but he will likely be there talking as well. They work on the huge helium balloon launching for NASA out at LDB (where I ski to). Anyways, he's a cool guy, and I thought even cooler that he was on Colbert. Here's the link to his 5 minute or so interview with Colbert. Pretty funny!
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/246562/august-13-2009/mark-devlin
Tonight is the Prom, and although I will be working Sunday, I still plan on having some fun with the 10k Scott's hut run, gingerbread decorating, and the big AZ vs UF b-ball game
Antarctica is a paradise for skate skiing, well at least here. Out on the ice shelf, it's perfectly flat, it's good snow, and as the roads lead to the airport, they are perfectly groomed. They opened up the snow roads to pegasus recently, so I've been doing a lot of skate skiing. 3 days in a row the last week. It's been gorgeous with no winds and warm (25-30F) temps. I've been finding my old form from last year and even did a couple of miles under 5 minute mile pace on my ski yesterday.
3 days ago when Elisha and I headed out to ski the the LDB/Pegasus road, the shuttle van we were in got hopelessly stuck (it's back to that Plagusus time of year for shuttles with the warm temps), so we just hopped out and skied longer than originally planned. There was another skier on the shuttle and as he said, "skiing is really the only way to travel in Antarctica" I believe shuttle shelly was stuck for more than 1/2 an hour as she waited for a snowcat to come pull her out
But really, on the snowroads, cruising along on skis, feeling the glide, breathing in the cold fresh air, and looking at the gorgeous view, there is nothing better. The skate skiing is so good here, that it can almost feel like downhill skiing, and you can often get going really fast if you have the wind to your back and use the shuttle to your advantage to always go with the wind. THough the last 3 days have been completely windless!
Last weekend, Elisha and I walked the castle rock loop and hiked to the top of Castle Rock (even though it was officially closed). On the way back down, Elisha snowboarded and I attempted telemarking, though I think the skis were pretty crummy bc I had trouble making turns without sliding too much. I think I"ll turn in my tele skis for a snowboard for next time bc she seemed to be able to grip onto the hard snow pretty well. We ran into Jules (Lael's aunt) up sunning herself at one of the apple shelters. She told us she was going to try and get another tracked vehicle (as another dept stole her snow cat) to start grooming part of the road and get rid of the hard snowdrifts.
A couple of days ago, we went into the galley kitchen and baked gingerbread. Cassa, Elisha, and I have a design in mind for our gingerbread house decoration this year, so we were cutting out shapes to fit that purpose. It was fun making and baking the gingerbread even though we were in a rush to make it out to catch the shuttle to LDB to ski. But we did have a lot of fun and managed to sneak quite a lot of bites of gingerbread dough. Tasty! I really enjoyed the rolling out and cutting of the dough bc it brought me right back to Christmas at my house with my mom and brother where it was a tradition to make Christmas cookies with special shapes. Those were some of the best Christmas times and incorporate some of my fondest memories. Those are some of the things I miss most about Christmas with my family.
This Sunday at the science lecture that I am in charge of overseeing, a guy named Mark Devlin will likely be speaking. Actually one of his partners will be giving the main speech, but he will likely be there talking as well. They work on the huge helium balloon launching for NASA out at LDB (where I ski to). Anyways, he's a cool guy, and I thought even cooler that he was on Colbert. Here's the link to his 5 minute or so interview with Colbert. Pretty funny!
http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/246562/august-13-2009/mark-devlin
Tonight is the Prom, and although I will be working Sunday, I still plan on having some fun with the 10k Scott's hut run, gingerbread decorating, and the big AZ vs UF b-ball game
2 comments:
Glad you're getting some skate skiing in! That's nice of Jules to groom the Castle Rock trails.
Does the gift shop have any really neat stickers and bumper stickers this year? I'm having to throw away my old coffee mug with the McMurdo coffeehouse and "don't pack a pest" sticker. I would totally reimburse you if you brought some stickers home for me! Maybe the gift shop staff would send me some pics of their inventory.
Give my aunt a hug and tell her Idaho misses her! (and of course, Idaho misses Teddy Cricket too... and so does Skinnydipper)
No worries Lael, I'll grab you some stickers. You may have to remind me. I'll also try and grab you some of the science stickers and do not freeze stickers
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