Im having a great time with my camera I bought, it takes amazing photos:

So another day, another dollar. Im just at work right now and thought I would make an entry highlighting the firehouse.
Here is a veiw from the main road through town, looking at our firestation #1:




Its been a good day, it was a high of 15+ and no joke it felt amazing. No wind and sun, it was like a spring day back at home. Spent most of the day driving the engines around and doing area familiarization. Its taken alot of driving to get used to some of the roads here. Some are very narrow and combined with the ice and drop offs on them it can make the knuckles turn white. Its been a good time though. Also spent about 2 hours fixing and re-wiring an electrical cord reel that we use on the engines for lighting and other things. (so you know if I took the time to highlight that I fixed a cord, than it must be a very eventful day..)

Here is our T.V. room where we spend most of out time after 5pm, and on the right is our training room:



Here is my bedroom at the dorms:

Halloween!

So things are going good. Funny story, as i was just typing this an older guy came in on a station tour and it turns out he used to be a firefighter in eugene, im not sure what he does down here but its a small world. Had a busy day at the ice runway 2 days ago.. I think we had like 5 departures and at 1am we had an inbound emergency so that increased the pucker factor a bit. An inbound C-130 sprung a gas leak and ended up landing on only 2 of 4 engines. In all reality they can do that but it was the first time weve been woken up there for an actuall emergency declared by a pilot.



We also had a med-evac again the other day so that was a change.



Heres a picture i took on one of our "hard stands" during a C-17 take off. We have about one of these a day land and take of with supplies and stuff. Thats the type of plane i flew down on as well:

So we had our halloween party last night which was a blast. There was a good turnout and that made it fun. I managed to get a flight suit so i was a flyboy. 2 of the guys on my shift dressed up as schoolgirls so that made for a funny time:


Heres a picture of what the ground looks like at our ice town/runway:

So many flights!

So things are moving along. Ive been pulling most of my shifts down at the ice runway so that has been a pretty cool experience. now that the season is in full swing we have tones of flights coming in and going out.




The runway and small "town" down there are built on top of actually sea ice. There is about 12 feet of ice seperating us from the sea. Today we had 4 flights total. For each flight we do what is called a hard stand. We have two trucks down there with 3 guys on each. In a hard stand the plane radios in when it is 100 miles out and we head to our posts which are right next to the runway. This has been a great experience because ive been "officering" one of the trucks so its good experience with communications between us and the air control tower. We wait for the plane to land and then follow it through its taxi and onto the apron.

It is actually a really cool thing to see. The weather has been very clear and sunny so the view on the ice is great. Money cannot by the view we get on the ice. Behind us to the northeast is Mcmurdo and Mt. erebus, and out everywhere else is Lots of sea ice and mountain ranges in the distance.

A view of Mcmurdo from the ice runway:

First day at the ice runway

So once again things are moving along. We got 7 new firefighters in on yesterdays flights so that is always good. I worked my first shfit at the ice runway yesterday. We drive down there in the morning for a 24 hour shift. Yesterday was the first official day the ice station was open this season. It was really cool. Its about a 10 minute drive out of town and its basically a tiny town on the frozen sea. Our fire trucks there are a bit different than the ones we use in town since we are driving on a sea of ice and they can get stuck. They were very fun to learn how to drive and its actually alot easier than it looks.





The runway is 2 miles long and made of compacted ice on top of the water. We had to drive out and standby for each flight that landed. I heard later in the season we do this alot with penguins that stand on the runway.

We also had a funny experience with a seal that didnt want to move off of the runway. We kept hurding it away but it owuld come back so in the end, myself and anouther firefighter sat out on the edge of the runway with this leapoard seal and made sure it didnt get in front of the plane. That made for a loud and cold experience. Luckily one of the guys in a different rig videotaped us the whole time we were doing this so that is one cool video. I have other pictures with me and the seal but i guess the NSF gets mad when theres pictures of us

Mid week update

So everything is moving along. The 70's party was a hit. Ive worked a few shifts now and have figured things out a little better now. We ran 2 calls yesterday so not very busy. Tommorow I start my 2 week stint out at the airfield. Theres nothing new really going on but i have some new pictures so i thuoght id post them. Ive gotten to know two christchurch proffesional firefighters who were down here to train some of the kiwis at scott base and they are really cool. They were a riot at the 70's party. One has been on the job for 20+ years and the other about 15. they left today to go back to new zealand but he gave me his phone number and address and told me to call him when i come through in the spring. (Late summer for them) hopefully I can find a way to get a couple corvallis badges and shirts down here because they have been very hospitable and they wanted some shirts. Last night was the coldest its been since i have been here, I think it got to 45 below. We were unfortunate enough to get a call at midnight and have to stand out in it.

These are two of our in town fire engines. They resemble a typicle engine. Ill get some photos while im out at the airfield because that is where we use our really cool apparatus.

IM ON THE ICE

After a very rough plane ride and ice landing I am here. It was so amazing seeing this continent from the plane for the first time. Words cannot describe how beautiful this place is. We landed around 3pm on the 11th, which would be 7pm on the tenth back in the states. Getting off of the plane and onto the ice was surreal. It was very shocking breathing in the air here for the first time. It was about 10 below on the ice runway so that made it extra fun. We were shuttled into town where we got our keys for our dorms and some other needed information. McMurdo station is built into the side of a hill. It overlooks the ross sea (ice shelf) which is what the runway is on. Its a small town but seems large when its 10 below and your walking across it. It is a very advanced town and i can enjoy all the same luxeries such as phone and internet which makes me forget that i am 15000 miles away.

Right now im just getting adjusted and moved in. The dorms are pretty nice and i share a room with 3 other firefighters. On our first night i met up with the other guys i havent seen since utah in july. THere were many stories to be told and it made for a great reunion at one of the 3 local bars here. One thing i will have to get used to is the fact that when we left the bar at 11pm the sun was up just behind the mountain range. Vary odd.

here is a picture i took outside gallagers at 11 30 pm. you can see the ice shelf and mountains in the background.

New Zealand

I cant think of a better place to get stuck for 4 days.... New zealand has been absolutley great and FREE at the same time. We got boomeranged on our first attempt to the ice so we had to turn around four hours into the flight and come back but oh well. From the irish bars to the outdoors this place really is pretty cool.
W e ended up in a pretty nice hostel/appartment. It had four bedrooms with a common kitchen. We called it ikea, which was a good thinkg because it was all new. On our last night in new zeland we ended up going to our favorite pub called the bog. It happened to be open mic night and it was a blast drinking guiness and listening to irish jigs.
We met an older couple from Whales which turned out to be great. They were on the tale end of a pretty long vacation.
It was interesting talking to the husband who was about 60 and hearing about ther travels from whales to san fransisco to fiji ending up in christchurch.