Trav's Travels: Trivia Champions! Dodgeball Champions!

11/9/18

We went to Rob Robbins' surprise party at the chalet. It's his 40th consecutive year coming down here, so we were invited to a party celebrating this. It was fun and they brought out wine, beer, and fancy food for us, all on the house.

After the party we went to Gallaghers to watch some karaoke.

11/10/18

Tonight was the dodgeball tournament, one of my favorite events at McM. Unbelievably, my team managed to win the whole thing, going undefeated in the double elimination tournament, and beating the very serious cargo team twice.

After the dodgeball tournament, we went to gallaghers bar where 3 different bands played live music, including Wyn and his band. Wyn was Elisha's supply lead last year

11/11/18

We had wanted to do the castle rock trail after brunch, but because of incoming weather, we instead hiked the hut ridge loop. In the afternoon we went to the craft fair, but didn't end up buying anything. In the evening we had a date with Spring and Jerod to have dinner and then play Nintendo on Jerod's projector screen in his dorm room

11/12/18
We went to Extreme Abs with Ellie and then in the evening to open mic night with Mitch and Linnah. Some very talented musicians on station!

11/14

For work we did a field camp review of Big Razorback camp, the group from Montana State, and the one that has Lucas and my mutual friend, Jesse.

Tonight was basketball and trivia night. Trivia happens every 2 weeks, and we usually go a couple of times per season. Our good friend Linnah is moving on to a new position soon (on the research vessel), and she is who we have traditionally done trivia with, so we went. Our goal is to not get last, and we usually find ourselves in the bottom half of the group, unless we have some person that really knows pop culture and other useless info with us. Tonight was no exception. After the 7 rounds, we were in 6^th out of 11 teams. Other than one awesome round (name up to 10 Star Alliance members…star alliance is part of United, and who I used to fly with for Sapidyne), we only got a couple of answers each round. But then they did a bonus round that the top 5 teams couldn’t compete in. The round was name as many countries without an ‘a’ in their names as you can in 5 minutes. This is a forte of mine, and we got 27 of them, pushing us well into 1^st place! So we took home the big trophy!

11/15

Today was SAR day. We did some classroom activities and then went outside on a glacier to practice glacial travel (with ropes, crampons, and ice axes), crevasse crossing, and self-arrest. It was a beautiful day, and really great to be out hiking on the glacier. After work, I ran the ob hill loop and Elisha walked it as she has been feeling under the weather.

11/16

They had put the obtube in last week (the tube that lets you climb down below the ice to look through the crystal clear aquarium of our little bay). A couple of people have already gotten stuck in it requiring a rescue by the firehouse, so we wanted to go down in case they closed it. As usual, it was beautiful. Lots of fish and some jelly fish. Elisha walked and I ran the ob hill loop again before a big going away dinner party for Linnah.

11/18

It was our first really beautiful weather day. No wind, sunny, and warm. I got lucky and won the rec lottery for a trip to cape evans and the cape evans hut. Since I will get to go to some cool places with my job, I ended up giving it Elisha, so she got to go and explore the area on a Hagglund trip. I ended up going for a ski to Castle Rock with Linnah and a guy named JB. It was such a beautiful day for a ski, and it was fitting to go with Linnah on her last day here as she was one of my adventure partners back in 2011.

One of my jobs is to collect and categorize invasive species, usually bugs that make their way on food or luggage. Here is a funny one about a spider found in air services cargo.

From: Michael (Contractor)
Sent: Tuesday, November 13, 2018 5:20 PM
To: Spring (Contractor)
Subject: spider?

Were you able to determine any info about the spider we turned in to you? Species? Name? Did it live a good life? Did it leave behind many other spiders?

From:Spring (Contractor)
Sent: Thursday, November 15, 2018 8:39 AM
To: Michael (Contractor)
Subject: RE: spider?

So far it’s in the freezer – we often ID them in batches, so no specific info yet.

Her name was Harriet the spi-der, and, yes, she lived a wonderful life. She had always dreamed of traveling to McMurdo where her great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great great grandfather once traveled to. She recalled her mother reading his letters aloud when she was young and marveled at his reports of a land where there are unending warehouses as far as the eyes can see with dark nooks and crannies completely free of cobwebs – an unspoiled fantasy frontier for any arachnid. The rest of her family insisted his tales were entertaining but apocryphal and that he was in fact living in a shack in the Australian outback, not Antarctica – but Harriet always believed that they were true. She died filled with satisfaction and wonder at finally confirming that her ancestor’s wild tales were true. She leaves behind 1,000 children and 1,000,000 grandchildren, some of whom live with your beloved friends and family who they are very fond of.