A cool travel poem I saw on facebook
The Wanderers.
Do not give us diamonds,
For I am afraid they have no place in a traveler's bag.
Do not look for us in fine restaurants,
For we have always found more comfort in the alleys, where the locals drink tea and cats go to rest.
Do not fret over our worn boots,
Their soles are sturdy and have carried us over sand dune and cityscape.
Do not fear our safety,
For the risk we face will never be as great as the tragedy of an adventure left unfollowed.
For I am afraid they have no place in a traveler's bag.
Do not look for us in fine restaurants,
For we have always found more comfort in the alleys, where the locals drink tea and cats go to rest.
Do not fret over our worn boots,
Their soles are sturdy and have carried us over sand dune and cityscape.
Do not fear our safety,
For the risk we face will never be as great as the tragedy of an adventure left unfollowed.
Above luxury,
We seek out the hidden places, where the stars come out to play and our hearts have room to grow.
Above comfort,
We sleep in train cars and on airport floors in the name of venturing just a bit further.
Above security,
We yearn to be strangers in strange lands.
We seek out the hidden places, where the stars come out to play and our hearts have room to grow.
Above comfort,
We sleep in train cars and on airport floors in the name of venturing just a bit further.
Above security,
We yearn to be strangers in strange lands.
We do not make it easy to love us,
This we know.
There are missed birthdays and empty chairs at dinner tables.
There are holidays spent alone and gaps in conversation.
As we travel onward
The holes that we have left,
Eventually begin to close.
And upon first coming home,
We feel stranger than we have in any exotic bazaar or foreign field.
This we know.
There are missed birthdays and empty chairs at dinner tables.
There are holidays spent alone and gaps in conversation.
As we travel onward
The holes that we have left,
Eventually begin to close.
And upon first coming home,
We feel stranger than we have in any exotic bazaar or foreign field.
We return to the places left behind,
And things are the same, though now, somehow different.
We do what did on the road and adapt.
Perhaps we sign a lease,
Begin a relationship,
Start thinking about settling down and in.
And things are the same, though now, somehow different.
We do what did on the road and adapt.
Perhaps we sign a lease,
Begin a relationship,
Start thinking about settling down and in.
Then it hits.
The daydreams resurface,
Idle moments become consumed by thoughts of mountain ranges and maps.
And when the feeling of stagnation seems as if it can grow no larger,
We go.
The daydreams resurface,
Idle moments become consumed by thoughts of mountain ranges and maps.
And when the feeling of stagnation seems as if it can grow no larger,
We go.
We follow rivers and watch the clouds,
We speak to strangers and tempt fate.
What we can no longer carry is left behind.
And the fear of fitting into a box we were never meant to fill fades.
We speak to strangers and tempt fate.
What we can no longer carry is left behind.
And the fear of fitting into a box we were never meant to fill fades.
As we travel further and father into the people we become,
We realize that home is in the hearts of everyone we have ever met.
That home is in every sunrise and thunderstorm,
In each bustling market and quiet meadow.
We realize that home is our own two feet,
And in the memories we hold to.
We realize that home is in the hearts of everyone we have ever met.
That home is in every sunrise and thunderstorm,
In each bustling market and quiet meadow.
We realize that home is our own two feet,
And in the memories we hold to.
Home is before and now and what comes after.
For the Wanderers,
Home is here.
Home is here.
-Alana Raquel
8/6
Today was the first sunset at 11:59pm. But it only dipped down for a few short minutes. Unfortunately it was cloudy, so I didn't get to see it. The photos are from a couple days earlier when it was clear.
Today for lunch we had salmon eggs benedict and dinner was craft pizzas. I finished up hauling all the cylinders today. Everyone was super impressed that I did all of that by bike. They can hardly believe it, but what has them more impressed is that yesterday I ran 6.5 miles in the soft snow and today 8 miles. They're not sure how I'm doing it. The manager today asked how old I was. He had thought I was in my twenties but said I had the energy of a teenager. I don't think I have tons of energy I just think everyone here has really low energy. They work and then watch a movie and then all are in bed before 10. I work and then do my hour or so of exercise and then work on my stats late into the night
The Olympics are going on right now. I'm really bummed to be missing them. They only come around every 4 years, and I love them! GO USA!
Today for our ERT (emergency response training) we did search and rescue. We first read the incident report for an incident that happened 6 or so years ago here in April. A couple of guys after dinner went out to check the skiway. They had apparently had a bit to drink. Also at that time there was only 5 people on station and station social dynamics were quite bad (the 2 guys were not talking to the other 3 on station). They went out on the skiway without survival gear, without a GPS, and without a radio and without telling anyone they were going. They apparently went to the end of the skiway, had a smoke, and then probably (thought they didn't admit this in the report) were fooling around on the snowmobiles. A storm came in and they were soon in white out conditions. They got separated and made the mistake of still moving around. One guy (call him Chris) eventually ran out of gas and dug a pit to hunker down in. The other (call him Steve) stopped his snowmobile much sooner and hunkered down, from time to time turning on the machine to warm up. Steve hadn't wandered as far and in the morning he was able to see a flag and make it back to station where he notified people that Chris was missing. The station had no idea. Three of the summit camp staff went out in a Tucker to search, but visibility was near zero. A royal danish airplane also flew around with radar. For 3 days, due to bad weather, they were unsucessful. Eventually, on the 4th day they found the guy. He was airlifted to Nuuk and then on to UC Davis burn unit where he lost a foot and a hand to frostbite. Amazingly he survived 3 nights in -40 weather without survival gear. Sadly he sued the company and the company threw the manager at the time under the bus (which had a lot of people here upset). In reality, they made a ton of mistakes that had they not done any of those, they would be been rescued much quicker. We are told when we go off station we have to carry a radio. We also have to have a point of contact who knows when we are expected to be back. When going "off station" (in the winter the skiway is off station) you also need to have a GPS to get you back home and a survival bag. Had they had a radio they could have called for help or a GPS could have led them home. There are a lot of different rumors going around about the actual events b/c not everything was probably told straight, but of course having alcohol didn't help, and they probably purposely went off the flagged skiway
You can read some more info on it here http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114665&org=NSF&from=news
8/7
We didn't get much time off today as the first flight of flight period 5 came in. It brought a couple researchers from Vermont and my boss Matt. It also brought back Storm, who will be the heavy equipment operator during the fall and Marie, who will be the manager. She looks familiar from Antarctica but I didn't really know her. The people on the flights came bearing gifts of magazines, beer, wine, whiskey, puzzles, and candy.
A contingency of 6 congressional science folks came in for the hour while the plane was on the ground. None of them were senators or congressman but they worked directly for senators as their science advisors. Hannah and I led them around on snowmobiles to give them a tour. Hannah did most of the talking, but the funny thing is they were most interested in the bike
I received lots of mail, which was nice!! Elisha sent me a couple small packages of nice things, my mom sent some socks, and Lael sent a letter. I also received a Lonely Planet Iceland guidebook. The cargo guy said I won the mail competition again. Nice to feel loved for sure!
It was blizzardy today, but I still went out for my Sunday nordic ski into the great white open
8/8
It's funny b/c Grey the manager keeps telling all the new people how crazy it was that I hauled all the cylinders by bike and then still went out for 8 mile runs afterwards. It's funny. He's so impressed
We had yummy salmon for dinner
8/10/16
Steak fajitas for lunch and Ribs for dinner! There is a Dr. Zoey here from CREL which is a snow research gov't agency and she brought with her an undergrad, Emily, from the University of Vermont. Emily is a bio major and a rising Senior. She's studying for the MCATS right now b/c she wants to be a doctor. We've bonded over doing school work together. She's spending her fall semester of her senior year studying abroad in Chamonix, France as she's a big skier. She's spending a week in Switzerland before heading to school, and I was telling her about (and showing her pictures of) my favorite places in Switzerland: Interlaken area (Gimmelwald/Murren/Grindelwad/Jungfraujoch) and Zermatt. She's was getting very excited and then I just ended up helping her plan her rail trip through Switzerland. It was fun to help her and look over my pictures. Switzerland is such a beautiful and amazing place. I think she might have been catching a bit of the travel bug talking about my travels. She wanted to see pictures of skiing in India, which she got a kick out of.
8/11/16
Today Storm let me drive the Case tractor to groom the skiway. I was super excited to do it, and I loved doing it. I always think my dream job would be driving snow cats b/c I like driving, and I love the snow. The Case is really comfortable and really quiet. Storm and I just talked as I drove it around, but normally Storm says he watches movies or listens to music or podcasts or just has quiet time as he drives. The Case we have here is a smaller version of the Cases they use for the traverse from McMurdo to South Pole to bring supplies. I've always wanted to do the traverse once I heard about it
8/12/16
The seismometer run by a German university in Potsdam came out of alignment yesterday, so we had to go align it today. The seismometer of course measures earthquakes, but here it primarily is used to measure the shakes that major icebergs send through the icesheet when they calve off into the ocean. To get to the seismometer we had to dig down about 6 feet to reach a covered vault. The entrance into the vault was very tiny b/c some of the snow had collapsed, so it was a crazy tight fit to squeeze into it. Going down wasn't too bad, but I had to have my arms above my heads to slide through. But coming out was another story. Elissa went through first, and we pushed her out. Then I went next and she pulled and Matt pushed and eventually they got me out. Then I pulled Matt out.
Yummy gyros for lunch and prime rib for dinner
8/13/16
It was a long week with turnover stuff and the flight period. They had a pretty big and I guess very wild party, but I had a chill night. "Illegally" streamed a couple of swim races from the Olympics which were awesome and chatted with the bro and then went to bed. I was planning on running a 1/2 marathon the next day so I didn't want to get involved with all the partying and consuming of all the whisky.
Before the party I was chatting with Zoey (Dr. Zoey from Vermont, who apparently was very wild at the party..haha). She's the one who grew up in Winter Park, but is now a professor at Vermont doing snow science stuff. She was saying her dad was the coach of Middle Park's cross country team for a long time. She ran xc country back when Emily Plummer won 4 straight state championships for Estes Park, and she knew Emily. She also knew Brian Pankau who I was friends with and who was in my boyscout troop. He moved to Winter Park maybe when we were freshmen. He was a great runner, but he tragically died in a car crash on snowy roads in Winter Park our senior year. Everyone likes Zoey b/c she's so bubbly and very funny. She loves to poke fun of her 4 year-old son and tell us all the crazy things he does.
One of the new people that came in on the flight today, Bermie from Seattle who is the head of construction/facility operations, noticed my watch. He said he recently got the same one and thinks it's cool. He said he bought it on a shopping spree when he and his wife found out they were pregnant. He said he figured it'd be the last time he'd get to spend money on himself, so he went out and bought the watch, and new carbon fiber mtn bike, a new backpack, a kayak, and sleeping bag. haha. We all got a kick out of that.
8/6
Today was the first sunset at 11:59pm. But it only dipped down for a few short minutes. Unfortunately it was cloudy, so I didn't get to see it. The photos are from a couple days earlier when it was clear.
Today for lunch we had salmon eggs benedict and dinner was craft pizzas. I finished up hauling all the cylinders today. Everyone was super impressed that I did all of that by bike. They can hardly believe it, but what has them more impressed is that yesterday I ran 6.5 miles in the soft snow and today 8 miles. They're not sure how I'm doing it. The manager today asked how old I was. He had thought I was in my twenties but said I had the energy of a teenager. I don't think I have tons of energy I just think everyone here has really low energy. They work and then watch a movie and then all are in bed before 10. I work and then do my hour or so of exercise and then work on my stats late into the night
The Olympics are going on right now. I'm really bummed to be missing them. They only come around every 4 years, and I love them! GO USA!
Today for our ERT (emergency response training) we did search and rescue. We first read the incident report for an incident that happened 6 or so years ago here in April. A couple of guys after dinner went out to check the skiway. They had apparently had a bit to drink. Also at that time there was only 5 people on station and station social dynamics were quite bad (the 2 guys were not talking to the other 3 on station). They went out on the skiway without survival gear, without a GPS, and without a radio and without telling anyone they were going. They apparently went to the end of the skiway, had a smoke, and then probably (thought they didn't admit this in the report) were fooling around on the snowmobiles. A storm came in and they were soon in white out conditions. They got separated and made the mistake of still moving around. One guy (call him Chris) eventually ran out of gas and dug a pit to hunker down in. The other (call him Steve) stopped his snowmobile much sooner and hunkered down, from time to time turning on the machine to warm up. Steve hadn't wandered as far and in the morning he was able to see a flag and make it back to station where he notified people that Chris was missing. The station had no idea. Three of the summit camp staff went out in a Tucker to search, but visibility was near zero. A royal danish airplane also flew around with radar. For 3 days, due to bad weather, they were unsucessful. Eventually, on the 4th day they found the guy. He was airlifted to Nuuk and then on to UC Davis burn unit where he lost a foot and a hand to frostbite. Amazingly he survived 3 nights in -40 weather without survival gear. Sadly he sued the company and the company threw the manager at the time under the bus (which had a lot of people here upset). In reality, they made a ton of mistakes that had they not done any of those, they would be been rescued much quicker. We are told when we go off station we have to carry a radio. We also have to have a point of contact who knows when we are expected to be back. When going "off station" (in the winter the skiway is off station) you also need to have a GPS to get you back home and a survival bag. Had they had a radio they could have called for help or a GPS could have led them home. There are a lot of different rumors going around about the actual events b/c not everything was probably told straight, but of course having alcohol didn't help, and they probably purposely went off the flagged skiway
You can read some more info on it here http://www.nsf.gov/news/news_summ.jsp?cntn_id=114665&org=NSF&from=news
8/7
We didn't get much time off today as the first flight of flight period 5 came in. It brought a couple researchers from Vermont and my boss Matt. It also brought back Storm, who will be the heavy equipment operator during the fall and Marie, who will be the manager. She looks familiar from Antarctica but I didn't really know her. The people on the flights came bearing gifts of magazines, beer, wine, whiskey, puzzles, and candy.
A contingency of 6 congressional science folks came in for the hour while the plane was on the ground. None of them were senators or congressman but they worked directly for senators as their science advisors. Hannah and I led them around on snowmobiles to give them a tour. Hannah did most of the talking, but the funny thing is they were most interested in the bike
I received lots of mail, which was nice!! Elisha sent me a couple small packages of nice things, my mom sent some socks, and Lael sent a letter. I also received a Lonely Planet Iceland guidebook. The cargo guy said I won the mail competition again. Nice to feel loved for sure!
It was blizzardy today, but I still went out for my Sunday nordic ski into the great white open
8/8
It's funny b/c Grey the manager keeps telling all the new people how crazy it was that I hauled all the cylinders by bike and then still went out for 8 mile runs afterwards. It's funny. He's so impressed
We had yummy salmon for dinner
8/10/16
Steak fajitas for lunch and Ribs for dinner! There is a Dr. Zoey here from CREL which is a snow research gov't agency and she brought with her an undergrad, Emily, from the University of Vermont. Emily is a bio major and a rising Senior. She's studying for the MCATS right now b/c she wants to be a doctor. We've bonded over doing school work together. She's spending her fall semester of her senior year studying abroad in Chamonix, France as she's a big skier. She's spending a week in Switzerland before heading to school, and I was telling her about (and showing her pictures of) my favorite places in Switzerland: Interlaken area (Gimmelwald/Murren/Grindelwad/Jungfraujoch) and Zermatt. She's was getting very excited and then I just ended up helping her plan her rail trip through Switzerland. It was fun to help her and look over my pictures. Switzerland is such a beautiful and amazing place. I think she might have been catching a bit of the travel bug talking about my travels. She wanted to see pictures of skiing in India, which she got a kick out of.
8/11/16
Today Storm let me drive the Case tractor to groom the skiway. I was super excited to do it, and I loved doing it. I always think my dream job would be driving snow cats b/c I like driving, and I love the snow. The Case is really comfortable and really quiet. Storm and I just talked as I drove it around, but normally Storm says he watches movies or listens to music or podcasts or just has quiet time as he drives. The Case we have here is a smaller version of the Cases they use for the traverse from McMurdo to South Pole to bring supplies. I've always wanted to do the traverse once I heard about it
8/12/16
The seismometer run by a German university in Potsdam came out of alignment yesterday, so we had to go align it today. The seismometer of course measures earthquakes, but here it primarily is used to measure the shakes that major icebergs send through the icesheet when they calve off into the ocean. To get to the seismometer we had to dig down about 6 feet to reach a covered vault. The entrance into the vault was very tiny b/c some of the snow had collapsed, so it was a crazy tight fit to squeeze into it. Going down wasn't too bad, but I had to have my arms above my heads to slide through. But coming out was another story. Elissa went through first, and we pushed her out. Then I went next and she pulled and Matt pushed and eventually they got me out. Then I pulled Matt out.
Yummy gyros for lunch and prime rib for dinner
8/13/16
It was a long week with turnover stuff and the flight period. They had a pretty big and I guess very wild party, but I had a chill night. "Illegally" streamed a couple of swim races from the Olympics which were awesome and chatted with the bro and then went to bed. I was planning on running a 1/2 marathon the next day so I didn't want to get involved with all the partying and consuming of all the whisky.
Before the party I was chatting with Zoey (Dr. Zoey from Vermont, who apparently was very wild at the party..haha). She's the one who grew up in Winter Park, but is now a professor at Vermont doing snow science stuff. She was saying her dad was the coach of Middle Park's cross country team for a long time. She ran xc country back when Emily Plummer won 4 straight state championships for Estes Park, and she knew Emily. She also knew Brian Pankau who I was friends with and who was in my boyscout troop. He moved to Winter Park maybe when we were freshmen. He was a great runner, but he tragically died in a car crash on snowy roads in Winter Park our senior year. Everyone likes Zoey b/c she's so bubbly and very funny. She loves to poke fun of her 4 year-old son and tell us all the crazy things he does.
One of the new people that came in on the flight today, Bermie from Seattle who is the head of construction/facility operations, noticed my watch. He said he recently got the same one and thinks it's cool. He said he bought it on a shopping spree when he and his wife found out they were pregnant. He said he figured it'd be the last time he'd get to spend money on himself, so he went out and bought the watch, and new carbon fiber mtn bike, a new backpack, a kayak, and sleeping bag. haha. We all got a kick out of that.
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| TAWO in low light |
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| mail from the last flight period |
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| gifts from Elisha |
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| peanut butter balls |
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| First sunset |
1 comment:
Yay, Mr. Arctic Gnome!
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