What I've Been doing

Climbing Castle Rock at night isn't for the faint of heart. After reaching the summit we were pumped the view was great and the night was perfect. We had a mini picnic and "jumped for joy" before making the descent and heading home. (photo by Thai)







1.2.3. Jump!


On Saturday I found the Green house, the greenhouse here is very small. It was started and initially run soley by volunteers as a community project, now there is a greenhouse tender, they grow a few tomatoes, cucumbers, lettuce, ect. But not enough to support many people. It is a great asset for the people who winter-over. It my new favorite place, it's open all the time so we can just hang out, read a book, or take a nap. (my pic)

I took a tour of the power plant. All the electricity on the station is generated by Caterpillar 16 cylinder diesel engines hooked to generators. The power plant has 6 large generators, although they only use 3 at any given time. These generators have been running for 25 years! The water that cools the engine's is piped to the dorm buildings and used to heat the rooms. Great idea, use the "wasted" energy to heat the buildings. About half the buildings on station are heated this way. (my pic)



Cosmic bowling. There is a two lane bowling ally here in McMurdo. It was built in 1961, the lanes aren't quite level and there is no automatic pin machine, so there is a person at the end of each lane to reset the pins, and roll the ball back! The pins and some of the balls are fluorescent, and they blow fog on the lanes to make it even more challenging. It's a lot more fun the bowling at home. Everyone who works at the VMF had a department bowling night on Saturday, we had a good time with it. (my pic)