Christmas this year was a welcome relief after the stress of launch prep and LOS, and a chance to celebrate with the team one last time before we begin leaving the continent. The official banquet was on Christmas Eve (Saturday), with a low-key Sunday brunch on Christmas itself.
Flight Monitoring Takes No Holiday!
SPIDER is still in the air, and we need to keep monitoring it. Once LOS ended we set up a monitoring center back in McMurdo, in Crary Lab. Team members rotate in and out day and night, checking on SPIDER’s health and pondering / fixing anything strange in the data.
Christmas Dinner
As a personal aside: king crab has been more or less my favorite food since I was a kid. Once a year each August my family would go out to dinner at a local steakhouse, as a combined celebration of birthdays / anniversary / etc. We’d all order the king crab, and I have best associations with that meal. I have not had king crab in years, however, since the fishery has more or less collapsed. This menu was thus a real personal treat after an intense few weeks… I had seconds of everything.
Post-Dinner Walk
After dinner most of the team took a stroll out to Hut Point, on the rumor of penguins in the area. No such luck, but it was still a nice stroll.
A White Christmas
I guess Christmas in Antarctica is always white, but it was nice to see a dusting of snow Christmas morning.
Ready to Head Home
Antarctica has been nice, and I’m proud of our successful campaign. But I miss my family and home, as was brought home very hard by a call to them on (their) Christmas Eve. Very much looking forward to departing for Illinois this week.
Merry Christmas, and Happy Holidays.
Jeff Filippini 