Snip Snap

The weather was great today, full sun, a few lazy clouds, and hovering around 20F. I took a long walk to the 'Tourist Zone.' This is the only place on the continent open to tourists. The only way to get there is on a cruise boat equipped with helicopters. Should you take one of these cruises, you will have the pleasure of walking around a couple hundred foot square patch of hills in the Dry Valleys. The average price of one of these cruises is $30,000/person. Any takers? Right. So this is the only place on the continent (with the exception of the McMurdo greenhouse) where plants grow. Moss, specifically, and grow is pretty generous. Still, it's there. None of it is brave enough to be green, but some of it is a good-old-college-try shade of yellow. The hills are pretty there. Many of the rocks are wind sculpted, although not as much so as in other places. The rocks are pretty, and you're pretty close to the glacier. It overlooks Fryxell. Anyways, it was a nice way to kill a few hours this afternoon while the hotsy melted and the coms guys worked on getting the phone up and active.

After I got back we went to drill our last hole here. In the course of drilling, we managed to cut the damn cables we were trying to free. So, either we spend a few extra days at Fryxell pulling the thing (an underwater temperature sensor) out without just sending it to the bottom of the lake, or Peter deals with it later. Maybe he'll dive for it. We were both pretty impressed that we cut the cable. The drill edge was at least six inches away from it. The continent is accident prone. :( Well, it's almost midnight and we have an early morning tomorrow. JabberWocky over and out.