December 14, 2007
It’s getting warmer at the South Pole! I’ve been up to a lot in the last few weeks. Last Saturday night I went camping, yes camping out in the Antarctic. We took two LMC snow machines about a 30 min out into absolute nothingness. Probably only about two km from the station. We learned various things as setting up tents, wall building, keeping warm and how to build a quinsy hut. A quinsy hut is basically the shape of an igloo. Three of us spent five or more hours building this quinsy hut. We eventually dug a hole underground that came up through the floor to keep the heat in. After two of us got stuck in the hole we decided to use the side door. That was a very bad mistake. It was cold! I think I went to bed about 3am and got maybe 2 hours of sleep, which is pretty normal on this trip. Next time I’m using a bigger underground hole…. Next time. It was only a one night adventure and took up my whole weekend day. I did get some frost nip on the end of my nose, hopefully it doesn’t scar. The other cool thing is you now know a U.S. Postal Service clerk at the furthest South postal station in the world. I started working at the USPS a few weeks ago. Nothing is different from back home, long lines and blank faces during the Christmas season. They actually pay me a few beans for this gig. It’s fun though to learn something new and we are only open Wednesday night and Sunday afternoon. Days are starting to run together. Time seems to be going by a lot faster than it was, except this week. The weather was getting “nice”, until this week. The temps have warmed up to -11 or so all week, but the wind has been blowing about 20 knots all week. I’m not getting cold, but the wind is taking a beating on my body. It’s not too big a deal, just a pain. But it is a good reminder to where I am at. The sandy beaches of Australia sound pretty inviting right now. This week I took picture of my friend Brennen who had a Flat Stanly sent to him by a friend of a friends daughter in Michigan. It’s a little character that kids make and send around the world to people they know. Then at the end of the school year you present about where your Flat Stanly has been. Many of you may know about this little guy, but I think it’s a pretty neat thing to do. This particular Flat Stanly will be going to Finland, England and Spain after his trip to the South Pole. I want to send a Flat Stanly! Last night I got a tour of the fuel arches from a friend Rose. Under one arch there are nine tanks at 10,000 gallons a piece. They have to fill all of them before winter is over and last flight. They mostly fill all the tanks by offloading extra fuel from the aircraft. We have started our Bible study, and we’ve just started in to the book of James really slow. There are about five of us who meet, feel free to pray for us! Next week we have a seven day work week so we can have Christmas Eve and Christmas off. We have a large dinner with very good food on Christmas Eve.If you have any questions, just email me! Love hearing from you guys.
Merry Christmas,
Andrew
