But we still don't have any polar bears
Now this is not going to help correct the popular misconception that we live in igloos down here and chase away polar bears, but we do have a new prime new piece of real estate.
Denis, the weird French BICEP scientist, built an igloo this winter. It's taken him the entire winter to finish it, but he finally placed the keystone block of ice last week, and yesterday invited us over for an open house.
The entrance is recessed so you need to crawl in through a narrow tunnel, a little challenging to do in bulky ECW gear.
But it's quite cozy inside! Denis even brought a little mood lighting.
Brien and Renee enjoying the new digs.
Here's Robert - my flash went off and now you can see the haze from our breath condensation.
What's a celebration without a little bubbly? Interestingly, it takes less than a minute for the champagne to start turning to slush at -78F degrees. We also had some chocolate chip cookies, raisins and Hershey's kisses - they were frozen solid but we ate them anyway.
Robert took this photo of Team Igloo. Fortunately, we didn't encounter any polar bears on the way back to the station.
posted by Heidi @ 7:10 AM
4 comments
4 Comments:
Heidi,
How long did you say you have been at the pole? 33 months in the last 4 years? How does that timeline break down?
Actually that includes a couple of months on the LMG (I was thinking of total ice time). I first came down in Oct 2002 for 13 months, then winter 05 and 06 for another 18 months combined. Hmmm. Too much time here.
Heidi,
I think there is another Iglo over where the Russian Plane used to be that was built by Crackle and Govenor. Ask Mike Schultz about it. We called it the Kiwi South Pole Station. The Govenor even lit a fire inside to melt water into the cracks between blocks.
I asked Mike about that and he just got smiled and got this really nervous look on his face...what's that all about?
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