Thanksgiving at McMurdo

McMurdo Thanksgiving is celebrated the Saturday after actual Thanksgiving and almost everyone on station gets the full two day weekend off. Most people here work 6 days a week with only Sunday off, so parties were in full swing to celebrate the longer weekend. We all went to Adela's tango class Friday evening and then I was in the lab with Katarina and Adela until almost 1 am. Saturday morning there was a 5K turkey trot. The weather was not great: very windy and lightly snowing. The first half of the run was uphill and against the wind and it was probably the hardest 1.5 miles I have ever run. I had a buff over my face (and goggles), but my condensed breath and snot (my nose was running like crazy) made my buff freeze solid, which was very hard to breathe through. Once we turned back at the top of the hill and the wind was with us the run was much easier.

Things were a little frosty after my run.

These are the clothes that I wore for the 5K. Even when running, the strong wind can make you very cold.

A vegetarian Thanksgiving feast in Antarctica.

Saturday night was Thanksgiving dinner and the galley staff went all out to make a feast across 4 different seatings (3 pm, 5 pm, 7 pm, and midnight for the people on the overnight shifts). To support the extra work of Thanksgiving, people from other jobs throughout the station have been volunteering to help clean dishes and pots over the last couple of days. Katarina used her alcohol rations to buy some wine at the store for our dinner and we had a really nice time.

Katarina, Adela, Rachel, Keegan, and Karen