Trav's Travels

Tuesday, February 18, 2020

Gingerbread Houses of McMurdo

The gingerbread house event at McMurdo is one of my favorite things of the whole season, and so I wanted to post some pictures from all the years I've made gingerbread houses down here. I couldn't find any pictures of the one Elisha made when I was stuck at pole last year.

"Also, we recently learned about the passing of one of the chalet admins who has always been our biggest competition in the gingerbread contest. So in a way, a tribute to her.

As most of you have heard, we recently lost a long-time member of the McMurdo community, Liz Sutter. For those of you didn’t know Liz (though there probably aren’t many): she began in the program in 1998 as a janitor, spent a few seasons in Air Services, and then 15 seasons as Chalet admin. She deployed this season as well, but left McMurdo in early November after not feeling well. She was then diagnosed with cancer and returned to her home in Cape Cod. Dozens (perhaps hundreds) of ice friends called, sent letters and cards, gifts and flowers, and came to visit and spend time with her at her home, and later at the nursing facility where she passed away two days ago. She was thrilled to have so much love showered upon her in her final days. Liz documented her journey through Facebook posts. Her final post, as dictated to a close friend, is below.

It is extremely difficult to say goodbye to such a vibrant individual, and someone who served as the heart of McMurdo for so many years. The only way to make it more bearable is come together and share stories, most of them hilarious, because that is what she would want us to do.

Please join us tomorrow at the Chalet, Liz’s beloved workplace for so many years, to share memories and stories and laughs.

If you have photos of Liz you would like shared at her memorial tomorrow, please place them here: I:\Temp\Liz Sutter Memories"

Liz’s former boss and co-conspirator,

Julie

McMurdo Area Manager

Antarctic Support Contract (ASC)

ext 42486, pager 655

our 2011/12 season delta with shuttle bill driving

another group, doing the Kress

2017 Crary Touch ("tasty") Tank

another groups creation

2012-13 Naughty Waste Bins

2012-2013 Nice Waste Bins

2019-20 Gnome Tree house

another groups: Ob Hill

Another groups: Coffee House

Another Groups

another groups

the medical groups

another groups: Lorax, Oncler house

Another groups: Airfield Control Tower

This was the house Liz's former team made in her honor since she had been sent home with her sickness

Wednesday, February 12, 2020

Icy Emotions

2/8/20

A new McMurdo band performed tonight: Fleetwood Mac-town. (McMurdo is often affectionately known as Mactown). They played cover songs from Fleetwood Mac's Rumours Album. They were really good, and we had fun.

2/9/20

It was a crazy warm day--50F-- which broke a February's all-time high (48F in 1996). After brunch and some travel planning, Elisha and I walked to Scott Base and then out to Hut Point where there was some penguins hanging around. We had a big storm the day before, and the storm had completely blown all the ice out from the sound, so we have nothing but calm (at the moment) blue water as far as the eye can see. With the calm water, we could even see a minke whale in the distance.

The town folk were out and about. Lots hiking, but as walked through the buildings there were people out in hammocks, people eating pizza and drinking beer outside in the sunshine, several guys playing guitar outside, and many other just lounging around outside.

This is the last season for the beloved coffee house due to the station remodel. It's one of my favorite buildings, and I have some fond memories in it. I've had some good game nights there, Elisha and I used to watch movies in the "theater" section of it back when we didn't share a room, I've done travel planning there, seen great open mic nights, and it's where Elisha first sang and played guitar for me. It's this strange 3-tubed Quonset hut building.

Last night they hosted a last gala to say goodbye to the coffee house: a 2.5 hour long acoustic music show featuring a lot of my favorite singers and groups here. It was pretty emotional for me, partly b/c of the coffee house going away, but mostly b/c if it's our last season down here, then I'm really going to miss this place and the people. As I sat and listened to the music I was thinking how talented everyone is down here and how close the community is and how unique the community is. Everyone is so supportive, and as I looked around I could see all my smiling friends and could remember memories I had with each of them. I think back in the real world, outside of small college campuses and the few remaining small and real ski towns (e.g. Crested Butte), there aren't communities like the one here, filled with a tight knit group of people who are in to having fun and socializing and volunteering and just being very active and supportive of each other. And definitely rare in this world is a place where people aren't constantly on their phones. But you can never be bored here, there is always someone putting some event on, or some sport going on, or what not. So it makes me sad and makes me introspective as I think about this possibly being the last season and missing such a community.

This time always starts to bring up such emotions as the C-17 has started flying again, which means it is coming regularly to take our friends away. Something I really love about here is that at the transport time (when people walk from the check in area on station to the big-wheeled vehicle that will drive them to the runway), a large group will materialize to form a hug line between the building and vehicle to wish everyone goodbye.

Team Enviro

Record breaking temps

Sunday, February 9, 2020

Dodgeball Champions!

1/14/19

Tonight I gave a presentation to the community on my time and research at Mpala Research Centre. Once a week a member of the community gives a travelogue. These are always amazing because the McMurdo community is the most well traveled group I've ever been a part of. AND they don't just travel a lot, many do some really crazy and adventurous things (ex. flying rescue helicopters on Everest, rafting the congo river solo, crossing the darien gap solo and getting captured by drug runners, biking from alaska to southern south america, first climbing ascents in greenland, and more). I finally got the courage to give one this year. Normally they are held in the galley, but b/c of a scheduling conflict mine was held in the coffee house theater. This was a special thing for the rec coordinator as the coffee house is being torn down at the end of the year, so she said it was the last major coffee house event, and a good one to go out on.

The coffee house was packed past capacity and my talk seemed to be well-received, so that was good. Many people told me later they really enjoyed it, and I do think I spoke rather smoothly and easily, which is challenging for me. I even told some off-the-cuff jokes that made people laugh. And I was just getting over laryngitis, so I was stressed if my voice would work (it did).

1/17/19

An event was held where we got to watch the new Warren Miller ski film. Susan, a co-worker of Elisha's has a son in the movie, so Warren Miller productions sent a special disc down here to her so we could watch it. It was a fun crowd watching it as it was all the ski people. You should have heard the collective sigh that went up when the first powder turn was shown--those familiar with Antarctic know that there is basically NO powder here. This little gathering of people was probably the only people on station who would rather see more white (in the form of snow) after their Antarctic contract than green (in the form of grass and trees) like most people are hoping for.

1/18/19

Today was the first day seeing Orcas!! From our dorm we saw a couple swimming close to hut point, so I sprinted down to get a closer look. They have moved on, but in the distance we could see 7 or 8 spy hopping in the broken ice that the icebreaker had created.

1/19/19

Today Cargo Tim organized pickup ultimate frisbee up in the cargo yard. We had a surprisingly warm and mostly windless day, so it was a lot of fun.

1/20/20

Today felt like going to the big city for errands. haha. I had both a dentist appointment and PT appointment at the medical clinic

1/22/20

The resupply vessel, Ocean Giant arrived today. Also, we flew out to Miers valley and finished up our work removing the old Antarctica New Zealand Stream weir. It was touch work, but in a beautiful location!

1/25/20
Today was the dodgeball tournament. It featured 8 teams of 6 and was double elimination. Our team wore Hawaiian shirts and we were called The Fury?. The Fury? ended up losing its first game, but then we kept winning and ended up in the championship. In order to win the whole thing, we would have to beat the opposing team twice, b/c they had not lost yet. And lo and behold, we were able to!

2/4/20
Today Nate and I flew out to Moore's Bay to flag an old project as well as dig out a cargo line from the snow. To flag the huge instrument array, I had to ski about 6 miles in a big circle. Because we took a helicopter out there, I jokingly referred to it as my first time heli skiing. The snow was great, the sun was shining, and the wind was light. If only the terrain had been about 40 degrees steeper!

The tanker arrived today to bring fuel to the station.

After work, I ran around obhill and during the run saw a mink whale, several adelie penguins, and an emperor penguin.

2/5/20

The coast guard ice breaker pulled up along the tanker, and they were going to help us (enviro and spill team) boom the boat (in case of a spill); however, conditions of the ice did not allow for it, so we had to postpone it.

2/6/20
Today the Coast Guard of the Polar Star had their Liberty, so they came on to station. This means at night was the infamous Coasti-oke at Gallaghers. Elisha and I went for a bit, and it was fun to sing along with the Coasties.