Insanity!

9/17
No, not the insanity that you might be thinking would occur when you are isolated in a cold, desolate locale. My knees have started hurting, probably from spin biking everyday. That's sort of our only option for a good cardio workout. But there is another option, hearkening back to my Antarctic days. Insanity with Shawn-T. So today was the first day that I did Insanity. It's a tough workout to be sure, but I'm in pretty good cardio shape right now, so it wasn't terrible, even with a pressure altitude above 11,000ft.

9/19

It's started to get bitter cold. -30F during the whole day with -50F windchill.

Marie made pirogi's with side dishes of a blueberry, apple, cabbage hot salad and roasted carrots in honey. She also made a fresh cantalope custard thing that we put mixed berries and whip cream on top of

9/20

Still very cold. We had to take down an instrument from the MSF roof today b/c it can't operate below -35F. It took us a while to do it b/c we had to wear thin gloves for all the fine motor work. So we'd spend 5 minutes on the roof, then 5 minutes warming up.

Nate was supposed to cook today but our generator went down so he had to fix it. So Marie stepped in and made some sort of rice broccoli soup and biscuits. She also baked some chocolate chip cookies 

I saw some more Auroras tonight. And they were quite awesome

9/21

Today I cooked mushroom ravioli with a super tasty gorgonzola cheese sauce recipe that my mom gave me. Everyone loved it!  I also made more brussels sprouts and some lemon-herb chicken.

We had an amazingly clear day. We watched the 3/4 moon rise and it was super cool b/c it looks just so big here on this vast ice sheet as it rises above it. We also had a nice sunset going on at the same time. With the amazingly clear skies (even with the fairly large moon), I saw some really amazing dancing auroras across the night sky. I un-taped my window for the first time b/c the sun of course is now down before I go to bed and rises at 6am, so there's not too much light. From my window I could even see auroras. No need for a night light, can just use the auroras!

9/22

Had a nice and long chat with Kath about my results thus far. Crazy to think this time last year I was helping her make cider in the British countryside. I miss Bristol. It very much surprised me

Elissa made a very tasty Thai dish with various vegetables. It was sorta peanuty and nice and spicy. She also made a side of chicken

9/23
Storm made fried chicken and mashed potatoes with gravy. He also baked some sort of cauliflower pie thing. He went crazy on desserts. He roasted almonds and covered them in cocoa. He also made mango sticky rice. And then he made a super delicious peanut butter pie with oreos

doing insanity diamond jumps

you'll notice it was cold whilst doing Insanity, but also notice the pressure altitude was at 11,511ft. That's almost like being on top of Trail Ridge Road

our emergency vehicle, the tucker, has been brought inside to stay warm not that the temps are getting low

after having just cleaned frost off of the NOAA radiometers

NOAA's trace gases and aerosol inlets covered in frost on the tower that I need to remove

yummy gorgonzola sauce ingredients

very brief moonrise before being rising above the clouds

moon rising above the SOB

moon-rise over camp. Not so many buildings out there anymore as a lot of them have been dragged up onto the berm

the SMG (new garage for next year), the Sauna, and Storm's tractor

view out my window!

gator chomp! C'mon gators, get up and go!