28 November 2010 Thanksgiving in McMurdo

We hope you all enjoyed your Thanksgiving. Though we missed our families and friends, we had a nice Thanksgiving here in McMurdo as well.

Friday night we enjoyed some live music. Mechanics, scientists, janitors, supervisors, and other workers on station turned into drummers, guitarists, and singers. They played originals and covers, while the rest of us danced and enjoyed the entertainment.

A 5 km marathon, called the Turkey Trot, was organized on Saturday morning for McMurdo. About 70 people participated and ran from McMurdo to Scott Base and back. We saw the first group racing back. We also saw some people dressed up - one as a Native American and one as a banana.

Most of town had both Saturday and Sunday off though many science groups still worked at least part of Saturday.

Saturday afternoon the Thanksgiving festivities started. Instead of all 1200 people on station sitting together to eat dinner, we had designated time slots that we had signed up for. Some ate at 3, some at 5, and some at 7. We ate at 5 pm.

Everyone in our group got all dressed up - we wore dresses and nice shirts instead of salty, dusty wind pants, bunny boots, and Big Reds.

Then we enjoyed a fabulous meal: turkey and crab legs for the meat eaters. Stuffed peppers, a tofu-mushroom casserole, and meat-free stuffing for the vegetarians. Cranberry sauce, rolls, and fresh asparagus for all. Everything was delicious and beautiful!

At night we relaxed a bit and then had another night of music and dancing. Sunday we had almost the whole day off!

Now it's back to work for us all. Today (Monday), I helped LT drill our last hole, the SCINI crew is doing one more dive, and the divers are looking for another crack so they can dive at Turtle Rock.