monster truck

Today at work we had to take a few boxes to different buildings in town.  Some of them were bulky and kind of heavy, probably too much to hand carry (plus it was COLD today).  Unrelated story, but when I first got here I had to take a “Light Vehicle” training lesson.  Only part of that is done inside and the second part is done driving the vehicle.  When you put those two unrelated items together what you get is:  I GOT TO DRIVE ONE OF THOSE RED MONSTER TRUCKS!!!

It was awesome.  Here I am posing by my monster truck:

Remember what I said about how the proportion of everything is thrown off here.  It is nuts.  Those are 36" tires on a Ford F350 with about a 12" lift.  That’s a big truck.  I’d never driven a truck that big before and I’d certainly never driven one in Antarctica…now I have.  While I still think my truck would dominate this one, I did at one point, utter the words (to my absolute shock and disbelief; I regretted it instantly) that this thing made my Tacoma feel like a toy.  Please, please, please do not tell my truck I said that.

After we had done all the errands that we needed to do, my supervisor wanted me to complete my light vehicle training so we went “cruisin'”.  (That’s right, these monsters are the light vehicles out here, you wouldn’t believe the heavy’s and I know for a fact I’ll never drive any.)  I drove up above T-site where I had taken pictures before, remember where that red-white beach ball looking thing is and up near the wind mills?  That’s where we went, which should be obvious from the picture.  It was really cloudy today, also obvious from the picture, so the view wasn’t great, but we were up above McMurdo and Scott Base and could look down and see them and the pressure ridge.

So, if you missed my mug shot from (my) Sunday, here it is.  I took my picture before having put a hat on so my hair wasn’t oppressed yet.  My hair is fairly ridiculous and doesn’t stick up as much as I thought…I think it’s because it’s thinning drastically.