Jan 12th – Day 13 on Ice

Weather: Warm, windy. Got up to the single digits today (negative, of course), but wind chill was down near -30 or -40 F.

Last night was trivia night. The SPT/IceCube team took 2nd place, just edging out the Bicep crew. First place went to a team of SPoT drivers (SPoT is the South Pole Traverse).

Today was pretty laid back. Sunday is everyone’s day off (though that doesn’t apply so much to grantees or galley staff) and there is brunch starting at 10:30am. Brunch is great – lots of yummy food that we don’t usually have – but it can also be tough because there is no lunch on Sundays. Brunch goes ’till 1 and then there’s nothing until dinner at 5… it’s a harsh continent.

After brunch we went over some more winter-over training with Geoff including daily rounds and data quality checks. We also did some more cleaning of DSL; trying to make room for the SPT Ladies’ Night coming up in 2 weeks! Each group at Pole generally throws an annual party, such as the Carp party, Met party, etc. (carpenters, meteorology hosts them). The SPT Ladies’ Night is a nice change of pace from some of the other types of parties at the South Pole… just check out the announcement:

Since it’s Sunday, it’s also tradition to have SPT sauna night tonight around 9pm. I don’t know if I’ll do a pole run tonight, but will at least do a few mini cycles out back of station.

I also planted a sticker on one of the napkin holders (it’s no easy feat to find an open spot). There are a bunch of napkin holders in the galley, and it’s a popular tradition here at the South Pole to put stickers on them; usually of the Brewery or Antarctica variety. Cheers to a great up-and-coming brewery!