Here is a borrowed picture of a C-17 landing on the sea ice a couple of days ago. We get about two C-17 flights a week. During the summer season we have about four or so LC-130 flights to the pole a day. There will be approximately 54 C-17 flights (from New Zealand) and about 300 LC-130 flights (to the pole). There will be approximately 400 containers on the cargo ship when it arrives. Approximately 1/10 of the total cargo movement to/from the ice is done on the C-17s.
Central Asia
We are back from our most recent crazy trip. This time it was Central Asia and the "five stans" - Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, Uzbekistan and Turkmenistan. We made all of our objectives. And we have now been to 104 countries. Angie has 95 and I have 94 countries. Together it is 104. These five countries were packed into 12 days, 7 flights, 2 high speed trains, 1 cable car ride, 1 horse ride, and lots of hours in car trips. They are all Muslim countries, but they are better characterized as former Soviet countries. Russian langauge is a strong second language in all of these countries. There isn't much English spoken in any of them. Angie being fluent in Russian made all the difference and did intrepreting for me as well as a couple of British backpackers we met in Turkmenistan. Tajikistan is the Country with the distinct langauage being a derivitive of Persian with the others being Turkic. Ethnically, Southern Uzbecs are Tajik. Interesting, the spelling of many...
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