South Pole Adventure Travel Log: jan 27, 2000

Travel Log: January 27th, 2000

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January 27th, 2000

Randy writes:

At least one day at McMurdo -- possibly many!
Today I went to breakfast early, wrote some email and then visited the doctor, who attended to me very quickly but without much attention to detail. He decided in under 2 min that I had a bacterial cold and prescribed me some heavy duty antibiotics.
Steve and I hiked to the top of Observation Hill (see photos). We went to our safety orientation in Building 160: stay on the marked trail, don't fall in a crevass, black flag = danger marker, green & red flags = ok path, yellow flag = pee zone (no joke!).
After lunch we rented bikes ($5/week $20 deposit and overpriced for the quality of the bikes) and rode over to Scott Base. It isn't much of a deal, there were lots of seals there and a minky whale that I missed seeing surface. Tonight they are having a party for the people who built the base back in 1957.
While I am typing I am doing my laundry! This is incredibly exciting almost as exciting as the fresh fruit and salad that we had at today's meals. To top everything off I managed to get my beard trimmed.
Next big step is going to see the flight manifest tonight once it is posted.

Added later:

Both Steve and myself are manifested for tomorrow's flight to Christchurch. We shall see how it goes. I have priority #34 and Steve #48 out of 65. The most a flight can hold is 60 and that is only if there is no cargo.
The call is at 7 AM so I do not know if I will check mail again. If you hear from me at midday tomorrow that is a bad sign!

Click on any small image to retrieve a larger one...

Fire trucks and other things from Bldg 160.