Life Around Town

Today is Con 2 in town, and Con 1 everywhere else.  15 F, Windchill -10, winds gusting to 52 knots.  This is day two of this and has meant a second day off with no Helos flying.  We'll pay for it on the other end when we start catching up all the missions we've had to put off.  Going to watch a band tonight at the coffee house (Con Fun is their name) and head to bed to hit the workout facilities in the morning.  There's a band room with amps, guitars, mics, keyboards etc.  This place has it all, its not quite like Scott and Shackleton had it down here.  We celebrated Halloween here the other day.  You see some pretty amazing costumes with no limit to the creativity but a premium on supplies.  There'll be a few pics below.  Some new video posted below too.  Mt Erebus caldera with a brief glimpse of the lava lake (black, steaming maw of death),   some glacial shots of the dry valleys (the oldest exposed ice in the world), and a trip into the Observation or Ob tube.  Went ice fishing for science last week with some folks studying the antifreeze properties of the fish in the area.  We had some luck.  Wasn't much different than the days I used to fish for perch, blue gill, and crappie on muskrat lake with grandpa.  Only here, seals pop up in your fishing hole.  Speaking of seals, a poor girl we were flying to different projects was tagging seals and got rolled over on.  Tore here knee up and ended her season here.  Funny in hindsight I guess, and a comic strip was posted about it.  Got to watch out for all sorts of strange things down here.  Including the last unicorn.  No the purple dress isn't me.  He's a professional mt. climber/guide from Denali who will be doing the South Pole traverse this year.