November 19, 2007

Welcome back to the bottom of the world. If you are getting cold reading these emails, it’s ok I’m getting used to it. This is becoming a neat community down here. Yesterday we had mail call. The hoist is not working right now so our carpenter crew and a bunch of other people adding up to about 50 or 60 (about 25% of the station population) lined up the stairs to unload four crates of mail. One caught my eye that said Williams, but turns out it was for Suzie Williams. That’s not me. Mail is kind of a big deal down here. We then went to the other side of the building to unload four crates of adult beverages of several kinds and soda. For some reason there was an extra amount of Diet Sprit and Canada Dry. I guess when other people in the world don’t want it, it ends up at the bottom of the world. The station is up to about 240 people right now. Now that flights are actually making it in, there are anywhere from three to six flights coming in a day. They are mostly C-130 and a few twin otters. The C-130’s never stay grounded for too long. They unload people, cargo, food, fuel, etc. load up and take off again. During this time they never turn off the engines either. The planes are affixed with skies under the landing gear. We got to talk to one of the higher ups a few weeks ago and he guessed that each flight in on a C-130 from McMurdo Station to the South Pole Station cost around $75,000. That adds up after a summer of flying into the South Pole. I’m glad to be here and I’m ok with Uncle Sam paying the bill!
Last night they showed films from the BANFF Mountain Film Festival up in the galley(cafeteria). There were several short films that had the honor of being shown at the film festival. The last film they showed was about 30 mins. long about a couple from Canada. This couple road their bicycles… yes bicycles from northern Mongolia to Calcutta, India. That is 8000km on a bicycle. I have no idea why, but I wanted to cry when they made it to the Bay of Bengal in India. My favorite part was when they visited the locals in various places, from Mongolia, China, Tibet, Nepal and India. They were invited into the home of nomads in Mongolia for over 10 days, despite the language barrier. This was the true meaning of hospitality. On a much smaller scale it made me think about some of the awesome adventures that God has lead me through around the world in places like Papua New Guinea, Ethiopia, Australia, etc. and the people that I get to meet and even worship the Lord with. It really gave me a renewed spirit for being at the South Pole. I would recommend this films as a real story of overcoming difficulties and just some neat stories.
Work is going better and we are getting a good system in place. In just the last few days there has been a fair amount of siding put on the building. The actual siding is just ¼” plywood with a 1/16” aluminum cover on the outside. It is not very heavy stuff. I’ve been doing mostly furring out of the building and attaching Tyvek vapor barrier. We have been joking about how we have to apply at least two layers of vapor barrier on the building for the next time it rains down here. If it ever rains down here, we have bigger problems then water getting into the building. We think we saw some snow flurries last week. It’s funny how we are constantly surrounded by all snow everywhere and it effects everything down here, but seems as if it never snows. It’s because it NEVER melts.