Trav's Travels: McMurdo, that strange place (marathon, softball, coastioke)

Sometimes you just have to revel in how strange life is here.

On January 6^th we participated in the McMurdo marathon. Yea it’s always strange to think there is a Marathon down here. And even stranger when you think that the marathon is run entirely over the ocean, but not really on ice…it’s on snow. 100 ft of it floating on top of the Ross Sea. In past years, I’ve been competitive, trying to get a podium finish in the marathon or ski marathon. Last year I did a triathlon (bike, ski, run). Because of this, I’ve never enjoyed to the full extant the aid stations they have set-up along the course. Also, I never do the runs with Elisha b/c I’m usually out trying to get on the podium. So this year we decided to do it differently. We created our own category that we would for sure win: ski jouring. Meaning that I biked and towed Elisha—on skis—behind me. She didn’t just relax and get towed, she did help out with some skating. This allowed us to do it together and have some fun. We had a boombox speaker and jammed to music as we did the marathon. We stopped at the aid stations to enjoy brats, burgers, and brews. Part of the strangeness of the marathon here is that the marathon energy foods are brats, burgers, pretzels, m&ms, and 3 musketeers. Not the best energy types of foods. But they do have some cliff bars. One of the aid stations where I took water, I had to break through the ice in the top of the cup. With all of our stops and such, we ended up doing the ski jour marathon in about 3 hrs and 15 minutes. It was a lot of fun on the way out with the wind at our back. We were really cruising. But coming back into the wind was very difficult. It felt like I was biking up hill in the sand with Elisha snowplowing behind me. Everyone was really impressed by our set-up. We are known by some around station as the “All-American Couple” and we kept it up again

I can’t remember if it was before or after the Marathon, but we did another trivia night, and ended up with another win and trophy. But I’d have to say it was mostly due to some very smart trivia people also on our team.

1/10/19

Tonight was MAAG (McMurdo Alternative Art Gallery). It’s an event where people dress up, drink some wine and walk around looking at some very interesting artwork. There’s some really good stuff, and some rather curious and strange pieces. It’s a fun event and it’s always amazing to see how talented the people are here.

1/11/19

As we’re in the upcoming softball tournament, our team had a practice. There we were, out in the icy continent, on a cold and very windy day, playing baseball. As strange as that might be, after the practice we stopped into the Tuna Party that we were invited to. One of the gals from the waste department had been sent tons of fancy tuna (in a can), so she threw a tuna party. Tuna was put on crackers with a sauce. There were also sardines and olives and other bites. People were dressed up fancy, including the hostess who was wearing a nice blouse with a necktie, short shorts, and roller skates.

1/12/19

Tonight was Carpstock. It's an invite only, acoustic style music show. We got an invite because Elisha works for supply in the carp shop. It was a cool event with some good guitar singing musicians. Because it was invite only, it was pretty chill

1/13/19

Today was the big softball tournament. Elisha and I played on the Helicopter/Alternative Energy team, I as the left fielder and Elishas as catcher. Our team did well, and I ended up having an amazing tournament (As I write this on Jan 26th, people around town will still refer to me as MVP when they see me). It was a great day for McM Softball. The starting temperature was 21F with a windchill of 7F. Towards the end of the tournament, the wind slowed down and a snowstorm came in. From the outfield I had trouble seeing the batter through all the snowflakes.

I can't remember what team we played first, but we beat them pretty handily. The 2nd game was against Michael Davis and Science Cargo. It was a bit tighter, but we beat them to get into the final 4. It was obvious we had a pretty good team. Next up were the carpenters, reigning champs of 3 years. We had amazing defense, but our bats didn't seem to be there, so it was a tight game. At the top of the 7th (we play 7 innings), we were up by 2 runs (9-7). We had the bases loaded and a good, solid, and consistent hitter, Danny, up. There were 2 outs, but we just needed a simple hit to score 2 runs and keep the inning going, with some more big hitters up. As you may remember, from previous blogs on the tournament, there is quite a lot of heckling that goes on. Most of the time, it's just funny heckling, but during this at bat, the opposing team started some heckling that brought Danny's girlfriend (who is super sweet) into the mix. They must have said some bad things b/c he completely lost focus and managed to strike-out in slow pitch softball. After striking out, he slammed the bat a couple of times on the ground and then left the ball park and marched back up to the dorms. He was the pitcher, so this left us clinging to a 2 run lead heading into the bottom of the last inning, but with no pitcher. This meant our shortstop came in and pitched and we had to re-arrange the field. Our shortstop was definitely our best fielder, but not the best pitcher. The first 2 hits went to shortstop that our new shortstop muffed. The last, winning hit went to center where it was dropped by the new centerfielder covering for the centerfielder who had moved to the infield. Needless to say, they beat us 10-9 to make it to the championship.

But the highlights were that I went 6 for 7 during the tourney with 4 home runs (2 being grand slams) and one triple. 3 of the home runs were true homers, going over the "fence" (well onto the rock wall that is the end of right field) and one being an inside the park HR. Even for the true homers, you have to hustle home b/c technically the fielders can run up the hill and grab the ball off the rock wall to throw home, so I always sprinted around the bases. In my older age, I'm still pretty fast, and I excited the crowd on my home runs by always catching, and touching home plate, right on the heels of the runner in front of me, and then slamming into the fence separating the crowd from the field at nearly full speed as there is only 7 or so feet between home plate and the fence. I had some good catches in the outfield, and Elisha had some really awesome foul catches as the catcher as well as getting 2 people out at home on plays at the plate. The crowd also later talked about a couple of those.

The best moment; however, was in our last game. After I cleared the bases with a grand slam, Elisha stepped up to the plate and hit an inside the park home run off of the wall, for back to back home runs! She was the only girl to hit a HR and one of only 5 people in the whole tournament to hit a HR. For several days after the game, people were calling us the "power couple", a deviation from the normal "All-American couple". Elisha was saying that it feels like we wont the tournament because all of the post-tournament talk had been about us. haha.

There are of course other unusual aspects to the McM softball tournament that make it unique and special. The crowd sits in bleachers behind the fence and heckles the players, the umpires, and the skuas flying overhead. Since everyone knows everyone, the heckles can be quite funny. They seem to know to lay off the people who wouldn't handle being heckled. Elisha is very scared of being heckled, but they leave her alone and the only comments to her were that she looked nice in red (She was wearing a red jacket). For me they sometimes make fun of me for being sciencey or a nerd or something like that. When the crowd is upset with a play, everyone throws empty beer cans at the fence. Then someone picks them all back up to re-distribute to the crowd. Someone behind the bleachers is cooking up hot dogs, brats, and burgers. There is free beer, and the skuas circle ominously, waiting to get some free food. The umps, start drinking in the first games and by the last games, you definitely have to think their judgement is impaired (including their ability to walk straight). Some teams dress up, and one team, the wasties, even had a full on mascot. The field is a really rocky dirt area near to the pier. The ball can take crazy bounces when it hits a random rock and the footing can be rough. It's also rough if you decide to slide. I decided I best slide into 3rd on my triple and put a whole through my fleece pants, long underwear, and ended up with a good and bloody knee.

This year, because of particularly strong winds and a new softball organizer, a new rule was made. If you end up walking (in softball you start out your at bat with 0 balls and 1 strike), instead of taking your base, you have to hit off of a tee that was handcrafted here. Despite it meaning that the pitcher was no good, the crowd made it such that if you had to hit off the tee it was an embarrassment. In the early games, when someone would 'walk' the crowd would start chanting "Tee Ball, Tee Ball Tee Ball". In later games it morphed to "Shame, Shame, Shame, Shame"

At one point int the game, 2 gals, Hailey and Ellie, walked by selling nuts and rancid nuts. Food here is notoriously expired. It's not uncommon to see trail mix or energy bars from 2012, so they were poking fun of this (see hilarious picture of this below). They'd walk through the bleachers yelling "rancid nuts" and throwing them at the crowd.

All in all, it's one of the best events of the year and one of my favorites for sure. The next day, me as the environmental specialist was called down to the pier to retrieve a foul ball (environmental release) that had landed in the bay. I taped together a few bamboo poles and a fishing net and fished it out of the water.

1/26/19

I got kind of busy and was unable to keep up on my blog so much. I had some trips out to the field and plenty of other activities. Also got busy with post-ice trip planning, but I can remember some notable events.

They are thinking of making a new recreational loop trail that spurs off of the Castle Rock trail. I went up in a Hagglund with a couple of the field safety guys to walk the trail and determine if there would be any major environmental impacts if a trail was there. I actually found quite a bit of lichens and a very 'bushy' little green thing growing that might also be a lichen or a type of bryophyte. I wrote up a report that NSF environmental will review and make the ultimate decision on (though we have to wait until the government shutdown is over).

January 20th was the waste barn party. It was an awesome event. 2 bands played long sets and then there was a DJ. The last band played a lot of songs we knew, so the crowd got into it, and there was some good dancing.

During one of my environmental trainings, I gave it to Ariel Zych from NPR's "Science Friday" show. (https://www.sciencefriday.com/person/ariel-zych/) So that is pretty cool. She'll be here going around talking to scientists for podcasts on NPR. Interestingly I found out she also did some studies at Shoals Marine Lab (I was wearing a shirt from my time there, so she commented on it). She also got her MS at the University of Florida in entomology.

The Coast Guard ship, the Polar Star has been breaking ice around us for about a week now, but it finally docked a couple of days ago. It still seems crazy to live in a place where when I wake up and look out the window of the lounge in my dorm near to my room, I can see a giant icebreaker just sitting outside. Soon, it will be replaced by a giant cargo ship. This year the fuel tanker isn't coming, but in most other years, we would also see that.

Since the government is shut down and the coasties aren't being paid, McM made gift bags (candy and souvenirs) to give to them. Last night all the coasties came on board for their shore time, which meant it was time for the infamous coastioke! The coasties really get into karaoke here. We went out for the spectacle and to look for my cousin, Gena, who is on the ship. We didn't find her, but had a good time at Karaoke. The crowd particularly got into an Adele's "Someone Like You" and John Denver's "Take Me Home Country Roads". Again, another example of how crazy this place can be. Here we are, at a dark bar in a land that is otherwise 24 hrs of sunlight, watching a guy sing an Adele song that the whole bar is joining in singing. And the bar is made up of world class research scientists, random contract workers from all over, and the coast guard. All singing together and loving it. Somehow, I imagine that if Adele knew and could witness what was going on, she would be more proud of this than selling out some big stadium in New York.

I had a recent trip to the remote dry valleys. When the helicopter pilot came to pick me up at one of the camps, he was carrying hot, fresh pizza from McM, which he delivered to some of the camps. Again, what a crazy place. No dominos out here, but we have a helo pilot, who is nice enough to go get fresh pizza from the galley and deliver it out to the camps of the dry valley on his various rounds. Where else in the world do people get pizza delivered by helicopter!?

1/26/19
After our work-out and dinner we stopped by the coffee house to look for Gena, and sure enough we were able to find her. It was definitely nice to catch up with her.

I thought this would be a good time to just mention the exercise routine that Elisha and I do. Because we have that giant buffet at all times, we find it necessary to exercise 6 days a week. We participate in a program here that is affectionately known as 'mitch-body' or 'body by Mitch'. They are high intensity training exercise videos. The original that we started doing back in 2012-13 was insanity, created by Shaun T. He now has some other series, including T-25 and Max30, so we shuffle through these. Shaun T's company is called Beach Body workouts, thus the reason we call it Mitch-body, b/c Mitch is the POC for the group and is the one who hits play on the TV. It's a fun group of us that has regularly 6-8 people join. It makes it easier to all suffer together and poke fun of Shaun T and the other people in the videos. Our 2 other days of working out usually mean running on the treadmill at the gerbil gym, but occasionally going for a run, ski, or bike outside, though the weather hasn't been so nice this year. I also play basketball one night a week and Elisha and I play volleyball one night a week.

1/30/19

I had a day trip out to the dry valleys turn into a 2 night/3 day trip due to being stuck with bad weather. The dry valleys are about a 45 minute helicopter flight away, yet a whole different world. I was at Lake Hoare which has a little science camp. After being at McMurdo it feels like a combination of coming home to grandma and a mountain valley lakeside air bnb. When we arrived from our field work to the hut, the camp manager had homemade chai tea on the stove, she was making pizzas from scratch and there were fresh baked ginger cookies on the table. The field camps get better food selections, so the meals are better and they have little treats like special chocolates, nuts, and other snacks. They also have good hot cocoa and chai and things like that, including frozen berry smoothies. They also usually have a plethora of fresh baked goods. While I was stranded for the 3 days, we had fresh baked bread, ginger cookies, chocolate chip cookies, cinnamon rolls, and cardamon rolls. The camp manager usually does the cooking, but everyone chips in with the cleaning and camp chores. Everyone sits around the 1 table for dinner and after dinner and clean-up, people usually hang around and play games. One of the funny quirks of lake hoare is sky wine. They have 3 boxes of wine that hang from the ceiling by bungees so that you can easily fill up your cup at dinner or during games without getting up. Another Lake Hoare tradition is the ice shot. They have a mold that when you add water and freeze it, creates a shot glass. Before bed, they go outside, fill the ice shot glasses with a combo of baileys, kahlua, and vodka, then shoot it. After you've taken your shot, you throw the ice glass at a glacial erratic (giant rock that a glacier has carried down) that sits outside of the hut. The dry valley camps are like a whole different world from McMurdo, and I love when I'm lucky enough to get to stay there! And Lake Hoare camp has the most amazing setting. It sits on the shores of a frozen lake with steep mountains surrounding it and a giant glacier mere feet from camp.