Back on the farm in Summer

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I trailered a towable man lift (bucket lift) from Georgia to New York. The thing that made it eventful is that I had to drive my truck. My 2017 Chevy 3500 HD service truck (with only 31k miles) is not my Tesla. I have grown very accustomed to the Tesla self-driving, navigation and general hi-tech luxury. The truck, although I am very fond of my truck, is stressful and expensive to drive compared to the Tesla. Being on the farm alone has been an eye opener. I had forgotten how quiet and in-nature this place is. Very occasionaly a car or plane comes by and disrupts the void, but only occasionally. It has been very reflective. It is the first time I have been up here from Georgia without a specific date I must be back for... or so it seems. "All of humanity’s problems stem from man’s inability to sit quietly in a room alone."-- Blaise Pasacal mid 1600s. I guess I am working on humanity's problems. It can take a lot out of you. I feel good about some of the pics I ha...
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Another busy day. I am all set to go out to Taylor Dome on Saturday. Hopefully I will be getting back to McMurdo on Monday. I am scheduled to go out on a Twin Otter. I am pretty excited about being on the Twin Otter. I am not sure why. Hopefully I can get a ride back on a Basler which is a turbine powered DC-3. Last night's science lecture was about Antarctica past and future. A scientist who has been coming down since 1962 led the discussion with a lot of his personal photos. His photos included the first fossils found in Antarctica, petrified logs and all sorts of interesting geological content.

My ankle is much better. I went up to T-site today to check on a connection for the NASA folks. The picture out the truck window is on the road up to T-site. It is hard to judge heights from photos. It is at least 1000 feet down to the Ross Ice shelf. The other picture shows some of the hellium tanks for the Long Distance Balloon (LDB) project. The LDBs are launched in Antarctica sort of as a "poor man's" spacecraft. The winds go around Antarctica with sufficient reliability to launch very large balloons that can carry payloads of 6 tons and keep them at the edge of space for weeks. On top of that they can terminate the mission at their discretion and jettison the payload for recovery. They are launching a neutrino detector this year. I am not sure what else.

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