The Whales are back! and Double Sunset!

2-14-13
For Valentine's day, I had hoped to take Elisha on a hike up to one of the apples (shelters) on the trail to castle rock to have wine, fancy cheese, and some food.  Unfortunately, the weather was super cold and Elisha was still hobbled by the marathon, so instead we went to the open mic "love and anti-love" performances in the coffee house, which were actually really good and often funny.  I don't know if I had mentioned in a previous blog that during the last open mic night, Elisha had sang a couple songs: one with Jerod where Jerod started the song all by himself up on the stage and then Elisha sneak attacked him (or so the audience thought) and walked up to the stage and started singing.  She then sang Brett Dennen's "Ain't No Reason".  This was a song that Elisha had sung to me last year when I was interested in her and thinking of pursuing her, and I have told her since, that if she didn't want me to like her, she definitely shouldn't have sang that song to me.  She does it beautifully. 
Elisha gave me a fun scavenger hunt throughout Crary with cute little notes

Also, the C-17 is back and running, so we finally got in some fresh fruits and vegetables!  Yum!

2-15-13

I volunteered for another nightshift run for shuttles out to Pegasus (wow! I can't believe we ran that whole way).  As the season is winding down, Elisha and I had no passengers, so it was like a special Valentine's Day date (it was still valentine's day in America)

2-18-13

The icebreaker had done a good job and chopped up the ice.  After the tanker came in, we got a big storm that blew out a lot of the ice so that we had open ocean in front of McMurdo.  The tanker has since left and the "Ocean Giant" supply vessel is now docked, which means Elisha, being in supply is working about 14 straight 12 hour days until the end of the season. 

Today was a really nice day, so I skied out to LDB and back.  It was perhaps my last skate ski out here for a very long time.  So it was slightly emotional.  It has been one of my favorite things out here...skate skiing on the lonely expanse of the ross ice shelf with perfect skate skiing conditions.

After skiing, I walked the ob hill loop to take a good look at the open ocean.  I saw lots of Minke whales swimming and feeding out in the ocean, which was really cool.  Also tons of seals out on the ice edge.  The highlight; however, was watching a small group of emperor penguins swim and play in the water and slid around on some floating pieces of ice.  It's definitely great to have the ice move out so that we can start seeing the whales again.  It also adds a cool contrast and is beautiful!  Not to mention that the sun is getting lower at night now, so we are getting some gorgeous colors and near sunsets.

2-20-13

Last real day at work today, though I might have to go into work tomorrow to clean up some things.  Finally got our tickets booked.  It was a pretty big issue.  We didn’t get the dates that we wanted (Feb 26^th) and had to go with the 25^th.  This means that my weekend trip to Kaikoura, NZ with Mitch will just be a one night trip.  I feel bad bc I have tons of fun with Mitch and we were both looking forward to it, but I had no choice since Travelocity (the company that books the tickets for the Antarctic Support Contract) was such a mess.  I ended up writing them a pointed and direct email and copied my head boss on it. Within a few hours we finally heard back, but before that it had been a month and we had not heard anything.  Some of my friends actually got on the plane from McM to Christchurch without having heard about their flights home.  And we lose our usap email as soon as we leave the ice!  So I don’t know what they’re doing.  Some people (Elisha included) were booked only to LAX, so if they just took their standard flight home they would be stranded in LA.  In the end, I’m lucky that I wrote the email and was a bit forceful with it so that we could get our flights home.  I’ve pasted the letter I wrote below in case you are interested at the mess we had.

Today we are having a final last hurrah party for Crary at the Dive Locker, watching some movies, having some drinks with glacial ice and watching the sunset.  The sun hasn’t set in several months and today is a very unique and unusual day in that the sun will set twice.  It set very early this morning (at 12:22am) and will set again very late tonight (11:55pm).  That’s pretty cool!

See pictures below of things from the last couple of weeks

Hi Kirk and Cara,

I don’t know if you are able to help at all with this.  If you can, that would be great!   But at the very least, I wanted to make you aware of the issues Elisha and I have been having with redeployment.

Although we initially emailed Jan 23 and have done so weekly (and daily this week), we have not heard a single thing back from Travelocity, and I leave in 2 days.  I leave in 2 days, and I still don’t know when my ticket home is!  We are quite stressed and completely frustrated about this. See below for details.

I hope you are enjoying your time off the ice!  I can’t wait to join you!

Thanks,

Travis

---

Subject: Travel Help!
Importance: High

Hi Mike,

I have been pointed in your direction as to someone who could potentially help with Elisha Kayser and my flights back home.  I redeploy from McM in 2 days (the 22^nd), and I still have not heard anything back from holidays@usap.gov.  I first emailed January 23^rd, and I have emailed about once per week since then, and several times in the past week.  I have saved all of my correspondence for records. 

I understand that Travelocity and the travel people are busy and perhaps even overwhelmed; however, I am completely frustrated/stressed because I have not had one reply.  This is completely unprofessional.  I would expect an email saying they have received my request, but are busy at the very least!  I am the only person in the Crary office who has not heard back and had their tickets finalized.  I am also the person in the office who has the earliest return date to my area of departure, so one would think I should have been ahead of my co-workers who have much later return to USA dates.

My request is simple.  I would like to fly back, standard routing (or any routing for that matter) from Christchurch to my AOD of Denver on the 26^th of February.

The frustration lies in that I sent in my travel request shortly after my redeployment meeting (in other words, as soon as I could).  My first email was sent over 1 month before my requested travel date.  The folks in travel told us to be patient, that they would get our itineraries to us.  I was patient, but I needed to make plans.  Last minute is rarely good.  We were still reassured that our tickets would be booked, so I went ahead and made plans, while continuing emailing.  I booked hotels and vehicles in NZ for the time I would be there to travel with a co-worker.  My parents, planning on my arrival to Colorado on the 26^th, took a week off of work and booked a condo for us and Elisha in Crested Butte to ski.

Yesterday, I was given the Travelocity business phone numbers.  Last night I called Travelocity.  The man I spoke with was extremely helpful and worked hard to find flights.  He had no flights for the day I had requested other than going with Air New Zealand/United at a cost of $1790 to me.  He also found a flight leaving on the evening of the 25^th, laying over a night in Melbourne and arriving to Denver on the 26^th.  This would be at a cost of $400 to me not to mention having to get a visa for the night layover in Melbourne.

I realize that having the opportunity to be flexible with our flights is a privilege; however, we were told we would have this privilege and have made plans around this.  I understand this privilege and that flights get booked up; however, there has been absolutely no communication, so we had to proceed with our planning as if everything would get done (as we were assured here on base).  If they had told us within a week of our initial email, we could have made our plans accordingly and perhaps even taken FAA.  As it is now, if I stay longer in NZ (if there happens to be flights), my parents reservations in Crested Butte and their days off go to waste.  If I leave FAA, my plans with my co-worker and our deposits on hotels and car rentals are lost

The case with Elisha is even more frustrating.  She cannot simply take FAA to get to Denver like I can.  Her AOD is Spokane as she was living in Idaho last summer.  As she no longer lives in Idaho nor has an address there, she has been wanting to change her AOD to Denver.  She talked with Tom Hamann with how to go about this. She emailed the correct people.  However, she was told by each person she emailed to email another person.  As it stands she has not heard yes or no whether she is able to do this.  In our attempted dealings with holidays@usap.gov, we played it safe with the assumption that she would not get her AOD changed; thus, we suggested a change in itinerary from Spokane to Denver.  We assumed this would not be an issue as flights to Denver from LAX were cheaper than they were from LAX to Spokane, so we figured this wouldn’t affect her ticket price.  We, of course, heard nothing back from travel.  Additionally, back in mid January, we looked at flights from Spokane to Denver to see how much we would have to pay if she flew to her AOD, and we booked our individual ticket (risky in case of weather delays out of McMurdo).  Tickets at that time on the day we wanted were $80 one way.  They are now nearly $200 with no afternoon flights left; thus, she would have to also pay to overnight in Spokane.  Had we heard early on from Travelocity that her proposed changed itinerary was not an option, we could have booked these cheaper flights ages ago.  Now, considering how much it is proposed to cost me to fly anything other than FAA even on the standard itinerary home, we have no idea how much it will cost Elisha to get to Denver and thus do not know how to get her there without a spending a small fortune.

Perhaps the most frustrating issue has been the lack (none!) of responses and communication from Travelocity and the stress it has caused.  I had to reach out myself.  Elisha and I spent nearly 2 hours last night on our own time, staying up to close to midnight on the phone with Travelocity.  In a professional outfit, communication would be prompt and the service would be taken care of.  We are paying these travel professionals so that we don’t have to stress or worry about our flights home.  The opposite has instead occurred.  Elisha, who works with the vessel, is working 12 hour days for 14 straight days.  The last thing she needs is to stress about travel and lose 2 hours of sleep to it especially considering we have already had a safety stand down here due to all the accidents and medivacs.  I also should not be using hours of my own time and hours of company time to get this straightened out.  I have had several friends now leave McM without having their itinerary booked nor any communication from Travelocity.

It is unacceptable to me that after emailing Travelocity 1 month ago, we have not had a single response back even though I redeploy in 2 days.  It is unacceptable that we have had to take hours of our own time to reach out to Travelocity as well as take hours away from end of season tasking in order to attempt to book our flights home, especially considering that we properly contacted holidays@usap.gov right away after our redeployment meetings.  It is unacceptable that Elisha is working at a potentially hazardous job, with long hours and little sleep and that undoubtedly she is thinking about and stressed about redeployment as opposed to focusing on her tasks with vessel offload.  The fact that I would have to pay nearly $1800 dollars (Elisha likely more) to get home with the same routing is unacceptable. 

I believe, due to the complete lack of response, that Travelocity or ASC (whoever is responsible for the situation that has resulted in ZERO communication) should be responsible for covering the extra costs that those of us who did everything correctly are being asked to incur to get home, especially those of us who aren’t asking for some crazy itinerary change or en route layovers. From the talk of everyone around town who have also not heard anything back, I know I am not alone in believing this. 

I do not want to be a pain, and I understand that you are very busy and likely overwhelmed. I would just like some help.  I would like to have received a response and an itinerary by the time I leave McM (when I lose my usap email).

Thank you,

Kind Regards,

Travis

Elisha riding her snowmobile a bit too fast at room with a view

Dr. Andrew Thurber helping Terrel return my touch tank critters

Minke Whales

The tanker and the Palmer and the C-17 in the way distance

the research vessel palmer and an LC130

the russian icebreaker

me running up the stairs of crary

Russian Icebreaker

Mitch, Me, Elisha, and Bev at the pressure ridges

LC-130 during one of my volunteer Pegasus shuttle runs

The crary lab crew: abe, me, mitch, bev, and Elisha

The "Ocean Giant" supply vessel

open water at last!

Minke whales in a mirage

emperor penguins

emperors swimming

McMurdo, Antarctic Ice Marathon

Sunday the 10th was the McMurdo Ice Marathon.  It had been postponed from a date in January because of poor weather.  We lucked out because on this day, the weather, while cold, was pretty decent.  The temperature was in the low teens with windchill down to the single digits.

In standard marathons, some of the difficulties include physically and mentally preparing for this race.  In Antarctica, one of the biggest difficulties is preparing what you will wear.  When you stand around waiting for the race to start, you will be cold.  When you run with the wind at your back, if you are wearing a lot of clothes, you are likely to be sweating, when you run straight into the wind, you are likely to get cold and have your sweat freeze.  As you're cranking through the race, you're likely to get warm, but after 20 miles, your body may shut down (as it did for one girl who got hypothermic and had to be removed from the race) and you'll get cold.  The race could take up to 6 hours, and in a place like Antarctica, out on the sea ice, a nasty storm or freezing wind could blow in.  It was funny, bc this was one of the biggest stresses we faced.  We have been working out, but not training for a marathon, so our physical preparation was sub par, but I still wanted to go for the 26.2 miles.

The race starts near the land to ice transition near the kiwi base and goes the entire length to the Pegasus airfield (roughly 13 miles) and then turns around and comes back.  The race is run entirely on the Pegasus snow road which is situated on the Ross Sea Ice Shelf, which means that the Ross Sea is below and during the whole marathon, you are actually running on top of the ocean!  They have 3 aid stations (at mile marker 3, mile marker 7, and mile marker 11), which you go by twice each.  The best one being the one at mile marker 7 run by Cargo and home to the quarter marathon finish.  At this aid station in addition to the traditinal powerbars, pb&j's, gatorade, and water, you can find brats and burritos cooked up by cargo as well as beer and shots.  It was so cold that the mile marker 7 guys were putting the energy bars on grills to keep them from freezing.  But the drinks placed out on the tables for us to grab were almost always frozen, so you just had to dump a cup into the cooler.  Each of the aid stations had a running van you could hop into to warm up...in retrospect, I probably should have used this form of aid!

Last year I skied the full marathon, but this year I decided to run it, partly because it would be cool to say you've run a marathon in Antarctica, but also because I just thought it's a sweet place to run one.

I felt really good the first 13 miles.  During these first 13 miles I averaged between 7:45 and 8:10 miles (this road is nice bc there are mile markers every mile for safety reasons when driving in case you were to hit whiteout conditions you could let rescuers know what the last mile you were at).  At the halfway part you turn into a stiff and cold wind.  I was able to hold 8 minute miles for the next 3 miles, but by the time I hit the cargo aid station at about mile 20, I was having trouble keeping 9 minute miles.  Then after I got some food there and made a quick stop, I was really having trouble and was doing everything I coudl just to keep running.  I think I was somewhere in the 10 to 11 minute mile range then, but I wasn't paying too much attention to my watch anymore.  The trouble I was having was that my muscles were just completely and utterly sore.  You know that sore you get the day after running a long race?  The one where it's hard to walk down stairs or sometimes just walk.  Well, that's the sore that I was getting DURING the race.  If I stopped at an aid station for more than a few seconds, I'm not sure if I could have continued running bc my muscles would have just gotten too sore.  I think the reason for this was that as I began to get a bit tired and was running into the wind, my muscles got really cold.  That's usually when you get sore after a race, after you've sat down or gone to bed and your muscles have gotten cold.  Well, here, even while running my legs got cold and froze up.  The first 13 miles the wind was at your back, which means the windchill is much less.  Also I was feeling good and working hard, so I was warm.  But once my energy reserves became lower and the temps dropped and I was moving slower, my muscles just froze up.  The funny thing is that I was actually feeling warm in my core, but no doubt, with just thin (non windproof) leggings and a pair of shorts on, my leg muscles were probably getting the full brunt of that 0F windchill.  I ended up running the race with leggings, medium thickness socks, bball shorts, a light wicking base layer long sleeve, a synthetic pullover, a neckgaiter, a thin icebreaker hat, and windproof light gloves.  I had a windbreaker tied around my waste (and wind pants and fleece stashed at the mile 11 aid station), which when we turned around, I switched so that the knot was on my back and the coat portino was over the front to protect a certain important organ from frostbite.  I was actually wearing 2 pairs of underwear to protect it.  Something I had learned while skiing out there all those times on the ice shelf is that when you are going into the wind and don't have on windpants, that area is quite subject to the wind chill.  The problem is if you wear windpants you sweat way too much. Overall I was warm enough and even sweated a bit, but it must have just gotten to my muscles.

Anyways, I managed to push through the incredible sore pain of the last 5 or 6 miles and finish.  I ended up finishing in 3rd place with a time of 4hrs, 7 minutes, and 19 seconds.  I was 2nd place among Americans, and first place among civilians (a guy in the kiwi army was 2nd and the winner was some guy from the national guard)  I probably could have dropped several minutes off that time at the end, but I was in a lot of muscle pain and the next contender was miles back (I couldn't see him), so I took it slow in the last 5 miles.  Had I felt the need to push it, I probably could have.  I actually wasn't ever out of breath nor exhausted or tired.  What got me was these sore muscles caused by that bitter Antarctic cold. 

It was cool because at the finish line, they put up a tape for everyone to break.  I haven't broken tape since some 100m and 400m races in middle school track (there is no tape in swimming and distance running is not my strong point).  Research Associate Liz (who I call my little sister..I love that girl) was the starter and timer, so she was cheering us on with her megaphone upon finishing.  My good friend Kevin who is my suitemate and in charge or rec was cruising around by snowmobile to offer encouragement and make sure everyone was okay.

As soon as I finished, I could hardly move.  My muscles instantly froze.  Liz had to help push me up into her truck which she kept running for warmth.  Then shuttle shafer came by to pick finishers up to take them to town.  I rode with her to town to get my big red jacket, and she said I was walking like her after a long delta ride (she is the eldest of the shuttle drivers...a retired woman from the theatre business in Manhattan).  I rode back with her to await the finish of Elisha, Abe, and Bev.  The finished in about 5 and a half hours, a good hour in front of the cut off time. 

They talk about a Marathon being this lonely race where you are entirely inside your mind.  Well, the McMurdo marathon is the epitome of loneliness.  I ran with Anthony for the first several miles, but then, you would just not see anyone.  You can look out across the massive expanse of ice into ever and ever and not see a thing--no buildings, no trees, no nothing, just shimmering whiteness..just ice and stormy weather in the distance.  For some reason that emptiness and loneliness just hit me, and I think I enjoyed it and fed off of it.

Afterwards we went and got our free massages and then crashed on the couches to watch movies.  The next couple of days, you could tell who on base had run the marathon bc of how they were walking.  I never knew how many stairs this base had until then! It was actually pretty comical to see us all hobbling around.  And it was a busy week in Crary as all the scientists were going home, so we had to move around a lot.  I put up a sign on Bev, Abe, and my office that said, "please have patience with us, this office ran 78.6 miles on Sunday"

I had put this on my fb post race and thought it was good to share here again...

10 cool things about running the McMurdo, Antarctica Marathon:

1. One of the few places that the number of miles run for a summer marathon is more than the temperature in Fahrenheit (12F, -2 Wind-chill)

2. The entire marathon is run on top of the ocean

3. Tipping a cup of gatorade towards your mouth, only to be hit in the teeth by a solid block of ice

4. Energy bars were kept on the grill at aid ...stations to keep them thawed enough to eat

5. Band aids were placed on nipples not so much to avoid chafing, but as an additional layer against frost bite

6. Aid stations were stocked with hand warmers

7. Beardcicles and Snotcicles

8. Aid vehicles were snowmobiles
9. Fresh fruits and vegetables were not available for over a month before the race, nor were they available to help cramps during or after the race

10. The post marathon waddle could easily be mistaken for an emperor penguin

Marathoners departing from Ivan...the 1/2 marathoners would continue on Ivan to Pegasus

Marathon start

Me in first place after 25 yards..yep, i"m a sprinter

Anthony and me approaching aid station 1 with castle rock in the background

the rest of the crowd approaching the aid station

Ben Urmston with frosty beard

2nd and 5th aid station complete with bbq and adult beverages

4 hours and 7 minutes later



Bev, Abe, and Elisha finishing



McMurdo Ice Marathon Map.  Click on the Picture to see it bigger

Antarctica Softball Champions

2/6/13

Last Sunday was the McMurdo softball tournament.  This was one of my favorite events last year, and it was again this year.  Last year was quite warm (30's and sunny) where as this year was quite cold, gray, and windy, which made it more Antarcticesque. 

The game this year was played down by the ice pier, which was actually a pretty cool place to play it.  I was on the ATO/Michael Davis team.  Michael Davis is one of the base characters who heads up SciCo (science cargo).  One of the best parts of the game is the fans and the hecklers who show no mercy as especially as the games wear on and more and more alcohol are consumed.  Because everyone knows everyone, the heckling gets pretty creative.  The heckling towards me was pretty tame.  People often call me Science Guy around here, so a lot of the heckling was geared towards telling me to use my science knowledge to determine the best way to hit a homerun or something like that.  Other people, whose names will go unmentioned, who have more of reputations for getting around on base (no pun intended) had more interesting heckles.  For example one such lady, when she would take a ball while up to bat, the crowd would say stuff like, "she sure knows what a ball looks like" or "she won't be swinging at the next, as she knows balls come in pairs" or "I never saw a ball before that she could pass up".  This particular gal did go on to moon the crowd.  Of course one of my favorite things (from last year too) was everytime there was a bad call or a player that acted cocky or did something to get the crowd riled up, or sometimes just for the heck of it, all the people in the bleachers behind homeplate would throw an empty beer can at the chain fence backstop.  Then in Antarctic Treaty McMurdo fasion, someone would run down, collect them all and pass them out.  Apparently by the later games (I was still playing) Mitch and Elisha had tied string to their beer can so they could throw it and then reel it back in.

My team was pretty good and we played really well together.  We won our first game against the VMF (vehicle maintenance facility) and then won the playoff game against the BFC (the McMurdo equivalent of REI.  the group that supplies all the scientists with their outdoor needs), who at first looked to be the team to beat.  We then won the championship game quite handily against Supply (the team Elisha was on)

As it was played down by the icepier, there was a  big outfield, which favours people who can run.  If you are fast and can get a ball past the outfield, you can get an inside the park homerun (there was no fence, so no true homeruns could be hit).  I was the leadoff hitter for my team and ended up with 5 homeruns and 2 triples.  My best perhaps being my leadoff homerun to start the game against the BFC (the team everyone had winning it) in which the catcher blocked my way to the plate as I was sprinting home.  I tried to avoid them, but was going too fast so I knocked them a bit and then had to do a fast first dive to touch home plate.  It sort of sent the tone to how our team would play that game.  But defense is what I like to try to be the best at and what I take the most pride in, and my best moment was running down a deep fly ball to left center and making a leaping and diving catch on a ball that would have been a 3 run homerun for the BFC otherwise.  I played left center, the area most of the big swingers hit to, and I was able to use my speed to not let any balls get past me (save for one hit by Elisha, that I may have let go through my legs) and thus not give up any of those big plays that can hurt you so bad.


In other news, the Russian Icebreaker arrived to base yesterday and is currently working on breaking up the ice so that the Nathaniel B. Palmer research vessel and the tanker and cargo vessel can come in.  Hopefully with the broken up ice, whales will soon be arriving.

As we had such a warm season, the snow runway out at Pegasus is still too soft to land the big C-17 plane.  What this means as we have had no fresh fruits or vegetables since mid December.  We have also really had no package mail.  As of today, the runway could still not be certified for the weight of the plane.  This could pose a potential problems as the little LC-130's with skis that they have been using are too small to bring and take all the necessary cargo as well as all the people going home.  Plus their contract is over on Feb 15th.  Because of this, there have been plenty rumours flying as the McMurdo rumour mill is always spinning.  There have been talks that if the C-17 isn't able to come down this February that people will be put on the cargo vessel to go home.  Or that some people will have to redeploy early or stay for the winter.  The one that is the best and that I would love to see come to fruition is that we would all get sent home on a cruise ship.  This would be amazing because it would be a week to 10 days on a cruise ship hanging out, relaxing, getting paid, and partying with nothing else to do with all of our friends.  I couldn't think of a much better scenario.  Of course all these are rumours and we will just have to see how things pan out.  I do hope the 17 isn't able to arrive just so we can see what kind of mass confusion and problems arrise.

I went to the dentist on Monday.  It's kind of a fun experience to go here bc there is just a dentist and no hygeniest, so the patient gets to play hygeniest and do the water spray and suction thing.  The dentist here is also Dr. Bob.  His normal practice is in Colorado Springs and he's a very interesting guy bc he's travelled all over with dentistry.  Doing stuff in Russia, Africa, South America and other places.  He's an aquaintance outside of work, so I've heard a lot of his stories.  He runs the ping pong club here and does a lot of the sports events, and he speaks a bit of Russian, so he likes to talk to Elisha in Russian.  Interestingly, I found out at my appt that he went to undergrad and then dental school at Florida.  He said he really liked Gainesville and stayed active doing cycling and sailing and windsurfing and even camping in northern florida, so that gives me some hope for Florida.  Interestingly, he majored in Zoology as an undergrad and told me about some cool experiences he had with it from chasing down gators in swamps to going to Kenya, but that he saw how much the zoology grad students struggled with finding jobs and that the job market wasn't very good, so he decided to go with Dentistry and then just keep zoology as an interest and passion on the side.  Which is definitely why I often consider physical therapy....

2-09-13

The Nathaniel B Palmer arrived on station today following the channel that the Russian Icebreaker has made.  Still no C-17, but rumors are flying that it will land on Monday.

Last night I volunteered to do a Pegasus shuttle run out to the airport to help my ice mom Shuttle Jen out as night shift shuttles has been struggling with low staff.  I took Elisha along, and the nightshift coined it date night for Shuttle Guy.  I had a lot of fun.  It was nice to get out there and drive on the ice.  It’s beautiful on the drive to Pegasus, and last night Erebus and Ross Island were lit up against the foreground of dark, shaded ice.  Elisha and I had dinner out at the airfield with Shuttle Jen and Shuttle Kat after dropping of some LC-130 crew heading to WAIS.  On the ride back, we were transporting some friends who had arrived back in McM after being in field camps for several months.  When we got back to Shuttles, we hung out with the night shift and chatted and laughed.  I have to admit I miss the driving, music, and scenery, the excitement of being at the airfield, the relaxing atmosphere of the driving and shuttles office, and most of all the fantastic people in shuttles.  It didn’t really even feel like work.  And it made me feel really good that I could help out shuttles since they are having a tough time

room with a view

my desk

softball game at the pier

Russian Icebreaker

coach Michael Davis on the left