October 8 2003

October 8, 2003

Hi this is Dan, Today was our first real day for running around McMurdo. The objective on arriving here is to get all the orientation, training, and equipment hoarding we can get done in the shortest amount of time. Some of us started with a 7:30 am walking tour of the station to learn what goes on in all of these non-descript pre-fabricated buildings. We also had a tour of the Crary Science Laboratory and learned some of the protocols for using the lab's facilities. Stacy and Dan had to spend the rest of the day attending a snow survival and sea-ice refresher course. This is the short version of Happy Camper School which you will be hearing more about in the coming days. The rest of our group was busy with calling around to the different support facilities in town like the Berg Field Center and the Mechanized Equipment Center in order to round up all the field and lab equipment and food supplies we will need to carry out our research in the next few weeks. We ended the day in the lab getting organized and catching up on email Here is a picture taken out of our lab window of the sun rising from behind the Trans-Antarctic Range as is dips low along the horizon at 10 pm.