The Adventures of Stratodude: A Day in the Life . . .

We are pushing ahead with our preparations for the launch. We should be flight ready very soon. Now that I’ve been here a whole three days, I have gotten somewhat accustomed to the routine of life here. Everything is very structured. One of the CSBF guys described working at McMurdo as “The closest I’ll ever come to being in a penitentiary”. Everything does run on their schedule, but I’d bet the food is much better than prison and I’m sure you don’t have to worry about someone stabbing you with a butter knife during lunch here.

We start our day about 6:30 when the galley (dining hall) opens for breakfast. We get on the bus about 7:30 and are out at Williams Field by 8:00. Williams field is an ice runway about seven miles out of town. The vehicles have to travel Lunch is served in the LDB Galley at 11:30. The bus is here to pick us up to go back to town at 5:45. This is when everyone from all the science groups and the CSBF guys knock off for the day and go back to town. After dinner, we have a few hours to relax or go for a walk.

In general the food is excellent. The LDB galley has a small kitchen staff and they really have put on a couple of excellent meals the last two days. Another interesting aspect of life out here is where the freezer is for the galley – you guessed it – in the ground.

No, this is not a walk in freezer - this is a typical exterior door on a building here.

This is the "freezer" that our chef uses to keep the frozen food in for the galley.

Every time we go out to work, we all have to carry our orange bags with our ECW gear in it. It has been really warm the last two days (in the 20's, so we can go from building to building in shirt sleeves. We have not needed our ECW gear go go outside yet.