I am thinking about you though!!

As I got up this morning I felt like I was getting into a routine. I shaved and brushed my teeth last night before I went to bed and laid out my cloths for today because I knew the alarm would go off at 4:50 am and I knew I’d want that last few minutes of sleep before heading off for the day. After getting dressed I had my “routine” breakfast (raisin bran, banana and a small danish with a glass of grapefruit juice). I then made the routine short walk to work relieved my co-worker from the mid shift drudgery and went through all the morning facility opening procedures. I then checked my emails and sent my daily blog. It all now seems to be very routine. There’s a certain calmness and familiarity in routine. I hope your routine is not as chaotic as some can be.

Someone told me that as the snow melts here Mac Town starts to look like a turn of the 19th century mining town. I can now attest to that. The roads are dusty and gravelly with the occasional big chunk of lava thrown in (which may I say are hell on the shoes). The hillsides and terrain around town are barren as no vegetation grows here other than some small invisible to the eye organisms. Even so there is still a majestic quality to the scenery. The small dark hills in the foreground of the immense snow covered mountain ranges provide ample visual confirmation that you are indeed in a special place.

I was overcome by the peacefulness here as I walked to work this morning. The sky was clear the mountains lay in peaceful repose in the distance and a gentle zephyr rustled the flag on our building. It’s Sunday morning. The Saturday night celebrating is over. Today is the day most people are off work. The only day we have a brunch with waffles and omelets made to order. Sometimes we even have some Sunday comics to read. Not much flying today either just one C-130 coming back from a trip to Christchurch yesterday. Peaceful, Peaceful.

I spent most of the day at the Control Tower used for the Ice Runway. It’s a portable tower used the first two months we are here. All the buildings on the Ice Ramp are potable just like ice fishing houses. When the ice starts to thin all of the buildings and support equipment are removed from the ice. Where the runway is now is where the ice breaker will enter the harbor to create a channel for the fuel and cargo ships that will follow. During the warm months we have two different airports open one for ski equipped aircraft and one for wheel equipped aircraft. Since most of the activity occurs with the ski equipped aircraft the control tower is opened at that airport (Williams or Willy field) only. The other airport (Pegasus field) is uncontrolled.

Out on the ice ramp they have their own dining facility, a common use restroom facility, a fire station, a ready room for the aircrews, a workshop and many other support buildings. It’s a pretty amazing place. The nice thing is it’s close to town. When they move to the remote airports they are a 30 minute van ride away from town. One of the amazing things I saw was 3 generations of Air Force cargo planes. The DC-3, the oldest, was originally used in World War II and saw action as late as the Viet Nam War. The C-130 first used in the early days of Viet Nam and remains in use today. Last is the C-17 which is the Air Forces current heavy lift cargo plane which came into use in the middle 90’s. The DC-3 is now owned by a civilian aircraft company based in Canada.

The control tower itself is pretty homey. Downstairs is a break room and a weather observing station. Upstairs in the cab there is room for four people comfortably seated. We had as many as six up there today. I’ll be sending along pictures in the coming days.

Well I didn’t get to go to the water treatment plant yesterday as planned. One of the things I did early on, as you may recall, was to volunteer to work with the Mass Casualties Incident (MCI) Team. I work with the communications folks (go figure).
Our team had a meeting scheduled for 2:00 pm in the dining hall. When I arrived no one else was there. As I looked out of the window I saw a crowd of people over at the hospital. I knew that wasn’t a good sign so I pulled on my jacket and headed over there. I saw our team leader going in as I arrived and followed him back to where our radios are located. The rest of the team was already there. Thankfully it was only a drill but it would end up consuming the rest of the afternoon. I’ll spare you the details of the drill but it became quit involved. As you might guess there is always a fly in the ointment and this was no exception. Two people had the nerve to actually get injured while the drill was going on (not part of the drill) and an actual priority medevac from the South Pole was initiated. It’s kind of nice to know there is a plan if we ever do have a mass casualty situation and by in large the plan was executed really well.

On the weather front, we had back to back days of really warm? weather. We recorded a sizzling 19 degrees the first day followed by an unheard of 23 the next. (both above zero) Naturally that called for retiring the “big red” (the big red coat you see in all the pictures). Bad plan, it got cold and windy again yesterday and all I was wearing was a windbreaker. Never try to second guess Mother Nature.