Nowhere To Go But Up

It’s back. First the Milky Way went away. Then the auroras faded from the black canvas on which they were painted into a pale blue background. Soon we started seeing the various colorful hues on the horizon. A few days ago, with the occasional break in cloud cover, you could detect a ribbon of the sun’s rays bent through the atmosphere. Now it’s here and obvious. Despite what has been for some people months of anticipation, I was still able to find myself in the galley on Sunday amidst a conversation about how to best seat one’s self in a room full of windows with sunlight projecting into every nook and corner without getting a face full of sunshine. It seems like it will be nice until it’s actually here, then you realize what you’ve really been waiting for is not the sun, but rather the plane that will take you out of here.

Most people still have at least a month to wait to leave. It will be a month of waiting without aurora, with the sun illuminating all of the things that represent summer time at the south pole: heavy equipment, construction projects, waste, snow drifts, busy work, vast expanses of nothing stretching further than the eye can see or the mind can imagine. The winter has all of those things, but you can only see, if anything at all, what is in the glow of your headlamp. You can only focus on the immediate task directly in front of you. It’s ever apparent in the summer months that lots of things are going on around you, because there’s always something churning, grinding, humming, or rumbling. The summer is a flurry of action, while the winter is more peaceful. Summer consists of what can’t be done in the winter, and vise versa.

Everyone who comes down to the South Pole will prefer one or the other, neither, but never both. The summer swirls with activity, but is brief. The winter is slow and long, but beautiful and peaceful. Summer means a new set of planes each day with a new crew of scientists, workers, dignitaries, and tourists. The winter is the same few dozen folks staring you in the face for nine months. Summer is sun, while winter is aurora. I have spent a summer and two winters here. I easily prefer winter, with all of the baggage that goes along with it.

It's a bit weird to be able to see people walking outside again.

It’s easy to think that the sun coming up will be just like when it went down, just in reverse. It’s hardly the case and also right on the money. The sun looks different when you haven’t seen it for so long and it invokes different feelings at one time of year vs. the other. When it is leaving you are full of anticipation, especially if it’s your first winter, of what is ahead. A cold dark winter is just around the corner. When it comes back there is still that anticipation, but now you’re waiting to get to the closest warm beach. At this time of year, the sun is a reminder of all of the things that have happened, all of the things that need to be done, and all of the opportunities that are about to open for all of us. Any way you look at it, the sun on the horizon means change, but it can be anxious change or more melancholy. At the South Pole, the only way to see either sunrise or sunset is by spending a winter here. We’ve all just been there and done that, give us the beach.

Michael has been making Sunday brunch once a month for the past two winters. They have all been special, but this one was a bit more memorable because instead of just setting the food out for people to grab we actually had servers that you could place an order with. As it so happens, I was in a volunteering mood this weekend so I ended up as one of the servers. I have told myself since I was a kid that I didn't want to work in the food industry because I don't like touching other people's food before they eat it. That's just one of the many manifestations of my weirdness, but that's for another blog post. For now let it suffice that I got over myself long enough to bring people coffee, take a few orders, deliver some grub, put together a plate or two, clear away some dishes, and generally prance around trying to look busy. The meal was a success, as is Michaels standard now, and I didn't spill coffee on anybody. Thanks to Heidi for all of the pictures.

The NOAA cam is back on and pointing at the station. Give a click to watch the sun rise at the south pole. It's live (updates every minute) as long as the satellite is up, currently between 2000 - 0400 GMT. The cam is situated on the ARO building and pointed at the old dome on the left and the new station on the right. The actual south pole is located directly in front of the new station, though it's hard to with the low light. If you pay enough attention, you can watch me, Jason, and the NOAA boys walking back and forth to work each day. If it ever gets below -100F again for more than one minute*, you might even get a free 300 Club show.

Click here for a preview of the National Geographic show about my little home in the snow airing on Thursday. I know my dad won't watch it because it is on at the same time as the Indianapolis Colts opener. Everyone else who has cable TV in the USA should tune in.

The Stauches are good folk, but they don't update their blog in a timely fashion. On the other hand, they tend to actually talk about what is happening down here as opposed to my blog, which just focuses on me. Jason recently put some photos up that demonstrate the fact that we're at the bottom of the planet pretty well. I was going to post the same photos at one point, but I didn't and he's got them up now so just click on the link.