Snow

Time for another very quick update before the people waiting in line to use the computer get too disgruntled.

As I mentioned a couple of posts ago, we were being threatened with condition one weather. Somewhat disappointingly, condition one weather never materialized, leaving myself and several other newcomers disappointed.

However, just because we were in condition three all day doesn't mean that the weather here can't turn nasty. The wind blew all day and it remained cloudy and especially chilly. I don't recall if we broke zero that day, but it was not the best weather to wander around in for the most part.

Near the end of the day, after we were out of class, I decided to take a walk to help me memorize the building names, numbers, and locations on base. As I came near the end of my walk, I ended up by the road next to our dorm that leads to the Ice Pier and Scott's hut. The weather was starting to clear with even a little sun peeking through, so I decided to go out and visit Scott's hut quickly.

Now, Scott's hut can't be more than three quarters of a mile away from my dorm at most, so it is a fairly easy walk in good weather, and that's how my journey began. As I passed the Ice Pier, however, the wind started to come back up again, making for a rather brisk walk, but nothing unbearable. As I actually came up to Scott's hut, though, the wind started to blast. The blowing snow off of the sea ice started to come up and blast me. I made a quick walk around the hut, struggling to remain standing in the wind before I noticed that the visibility was starting to drop rather quickly. This led to the decision to head back towards the dorm asap.

While the walk down was easy, the walk back felt like climbing a set of stairs the entire way as the wind pushed so hard that it remained difficult to remain upright at times. As I slowly made it closer and closer to the dorm, the wind kept picking up and started to pick up some of the fine volcanic sand and rock that "The Rock" consists of. I can now describe to you the feeling of being sandblasted. I was quite glad to finally make it back up to the dorm, and proceeded to hide out in the lounge the rest of the night.

Keep in mind that all of this was just condition three (normal) weather. If good weather can be that bad, I'm interested to see what bad weather can be like.

In other news, we finished up another week of training today. We're hoping to actually get on shift work by sometime next week, which we're all looking forward to. I have been and will continue to be doing a lot of studying in the coming week or so as I take my final tests on the building locations, hydraulics, and vehicle knowledge. I'm hoping to become a driver/operator (or in Maryland terms, a wagon driver) down here. I'm looking forward to both the challenge associated with it and also finally getting it done with.

That's all for now, as I'm out of time yet again. I'll try and get some more pics up shortly.