Just got off the phone with John in McMurdo.   Things going pretty well there, but still plenty to do too.  John and Brian (who are tenting together) took care of their food pull already, and they’re going to use a lot of the food left cached at CTAM at the end of last year’s vastly shortened trip (due to the government shutdown). Apparently the shelves are kind of bare,  too-  USAP is hoping to go to a model for field team food that is more about prepacked meals and  less concerned with individual choice.  The goal is to reduce waste,  and us deep field folks understand that waste is an issue. Frankly, you have to take out the maximum amount of food you expect to need,  not the minimum, and since most field seasons end up being shortened a bit by delays,  waste is an expectation.    I just hope that the new prepackaged regime remembers that food is far and away our major source of entertainment in the field;   I couldn’t imagine spending 10 days in a wind storm eating nothing but dehydrated chili…….

John and Brian are trying to get all the various major items checked out,  from snowmobiles to tents to satellite phones, and arranged in a way that we can get them in the cargo stream easily.  They’ll have thanksgiving dinner on Saturday (McMurdo works 6 days a week and  shifts holidays around a bit to get “long” weekends).  The remainder of the team (Ryan, myself, Vincian, Devon, Shannon and Christine) are leaving the states in the next few days (Ryan tomorrow, the rest of us on Saturday). We will rendevouz at various locations along the way; three of us flying from Dallas/Ft. Worth to Sydney and two from LAX to Sydney. All of us fly from Sydney to CHC on Monday (we land two days after we took off because of the International Date Line), and then if all goes well we fly south from Christchurch to McMurdo on Wednesday, a week from today.

wish us luck!

-posted by Ralph from Novelty Ohio,  Wednesday 26 November