dantarctica

Due to some extenuating circumstances, I spent about 3 months at McMurdo Station on Ross Island…ANTARCTICA. During that time I attempted to write my first blog to capture what I was experiencing, please enjoy those posts below.

quick aside: I am not being elusive about the “extenuating circumstances” it is just that I have outlined them in embarrassingly gruesome details on a post from the archived blog: antarctica:

I have changed sites and largely abandoned that blog, but I’ve pulled along the content ever since. In this most recent endeavor, I have even gone through to clean up the links to photos and attempted to use higher resolution photos that I had not posted previously. I, mainly, left everything untouched (even some blatant typos) but did update a few thing here and there so it is not exactly the same, but pretty darn close.

I took a picture of myself every day because one of the things I was doing was not cutting my hair or beard. I’ve probably had a dozen beards since then, but that was my first. It is chronicled here:

almost a month

Well, starting tomorrow I will have been in Antarctica for an entire month. Sure doesn’t seem like it. I think the continuous grind of working 9 hours a day 6 days a week and then trying to do something outside as well as keep up with emails and this blog makes the days disappear into weeks and the weeks quietly transform into months.

Castle Rock

I did the Castle Rock trail today. There are numerous variations of this hike but we did the out-and-back version instead of the loop. I don’t know the mileage of the hike, but I do know that I’m exhausted.

mustachio

Not a lot to say about today really. Work has actually been kind of busy, but it’s kind of busy work…but it makes the time go by. I am going to some sort of Soiree tonight which seems to be a pretty big deal.

skua

I overheard someone say that you could see the edge of the ice from half way up Ob Hill. The edge of the ice where the other side is water. I thought that’d be cool to see so I went up Ob Hill today after dinner.

two days

Two days. That’s how long my exercise regimen lasted. A measly two days. I’m a slug. Yesterday was a tough day at work, but my real excuse is that the wind was vicious.

another day

Not much to report today, unfortunately. It was really, really nice weather here again today. It might have even reached 40F if you can believe that! I hiked again and did the same loop in about 45 minutes.

turning point (I hope)

I think I finally decided to get on the ball. No more desserts. Cutting way back on the eating (this morning I must have had 50 slices of bacon and at least 150 tater tots…it was awesome).

ob hill

Well, it was an incredible day in Antarctica. Mild temperature (~34F) with little to no wind and clear skies. It was awesome. [From what I understand, it might have been nicer here than in DC, which is pretty much a given, but even weather-wise today.

Jacob Silge (voice immodulation syndrome)

Today was pretty uneventful but I did remember something I left out from the happy camper experience so I’ll fill that in now. Our instructors were awesome. They were all relatively new, but all very knowledgeable.

happy camper

Well, as I said yesterday, I survived. When I said that, I didn’t mean that it should come as a surprise because the weather was so horrendous. The weather was not bad at all, it was nice in fact.