McMurdo Town

After getting to Ivan, I was able to turn around and take some pictures of my new home for the nxt few months. These are the flight line buildings for the existing ice runway that will only be operational until December. After that it will not have enough solid ice to land on for several months. Strange to think that the runway is going to melt away.

Taking pictures the other direction are more of the flight line vehicles and mountains. The flat area is all frozen Ross Sea ice.

This view is from town, looking back at the ice runway. All roads on the ice are well marked with flags, and checked frequently for condition.

This beautiful mountain is Mt. Erebus, it is an active volcano and frequently spews out "bombs"or volcanic rock that have some very rare "crystals" in them. People collect them and make jewelry with them. They are very rare and the only other place that has some with the same chemical make up is in Africa. We can frequently see steam coming out the top.

If you go over to Crary Lab where the scientists are, you can look at a screen that has a live webcam of the crater, very interesting to watch.

From my room, this is one of the views that I have. The golden colored building, the brown door is the station laundry, to the right is the library door, and the remainder of the building is the galley and dorm rooms. The library is very well stocked, and a pleasant place to read, and rest.

Meet Dr. Penguin, he is the mascot for the medical facility, McMurdo General Hospital

During our first Mass Casualty Exercise, I caught the lead physician, Dr. Harry Owens, and the Flight Nurse Tara discussing the set up. We were practicing in the firehouse. We train lots of volunteers in town to help if there is a disaster of some kind. Thank heavens we have extra nurses on station that work in cargo, or as janitors or wherever.