Thanksgiving at McMurdo Station

Hello from McMurdo Station at the end of our Thanksgiving weekend. The US Antarctic Program generally has 6-day work weeks with a one day weekend. Holidays are combined with Sunday to make 2-day weekends. For Thanksgiving, that means celebrating Thanksgiving on a Saturday and then having the normal Sunday as an off day. Having a two-day weekend is a big deal here and typically these weekends stick out in what becomes a very methodical lifestyle with 24-hours of daylight.

The traditional Thanksgiving day in McMurdo starts the same way it does in towns and cities across the US, with a turkey trot road race. Unfortunately, I've been feeling less than 100% lately and decided against running in the turkey trot. I was debating my decision leading right up to the race. In the end, I slept right through the start time and that made the decision for me. The weather was mixed for this year's turkey trot. It was not the beautiful warm (~20sF) and sunny conditions we've had in past years but it was also not the stormy conditions that were in the forecast for awhile leading up to our Thanksgiving.

The Galley (cafeteria) spends days prepping for the Thanksgiving dinner. There are five different serving times for the Thanksgiving Dinner. The times are 1:00 PM, 3:00 PM, 5:00 PM, 7:00 PM, and midnight. The first seating is for the dining staff and the last if for those that work the night shift. That means most of the current 939 people on station are spread out over the 3:00, 5:00, and 7:00 seatings. Reservations are required to ensure that a given time is not overwhelmed with too many people. My dinner was at the 7:00 PM seating and I think that has been the same time for me during the four (out of the last five years) Thanksgiving Dinners in McMurdo.

The amount of food that is prepared for the station is approximately:

• 1008 lbs turkey
• 400 lbs turkey breasts
• 360 lbs ham
• 35 gallons gravy
• 500 lbs potatoes
• 195 pies

One tricky part of the days is that with the Galley busy serving all of the different seating times, there is no availability of other food. Breakfast finishes at 10:00 AM and that is it for hot food for the day, other than the Thanksgiving dinners. That means if you are somebody, like me, eating at 7:00 PM you might get hungry along the way. The Galley provides a Grab-n-Go cooler where they provide cold food items for people to eat when they get hungry during the day. It was reported that they also made 100 pizzas to be placed in the cooler for Grab-n-Go food. 

My Thanksgiving dinner was with colleagues from the University of Wisconsin automatic weather station (AWS) project and a science group out of University of Colorado that is here to collect payloads from balloons that were launched during the winter. The Thanksgiving meal is a collection of all of the great food that you would expect with a traditional Thanksgiving dinner. Included was carved turkey, stuffing, potatoes, corn, green bean casserole, gravy, rolls, and three types of pies. I am also sure I have left out some of the other options, such as ham, that we were provided for the day. The Galley provides everybody one glass of wine and you are also able to bring in your own wine if interested in having more to drink. I was able to put together a plate of amazing Thanksgiving food and I was very happy with all that I was able to eat.

The Sunday of Thanksgiving weekend is typically a quiet recovery day with station operations slowly spinning back up to normal. Thanksgiving is one of the few days where most everything shuts down in town. By the end of Sunday the nighttime operations have resumed and the two-day weekend has quickly disappeared.

We are in the final couple days, at least by schedule, for our 2019 field season in Antarctica. Our field work was finished last Thursday with the assistance of the Kiwi grad class. We spent part of Friday finalizing much our our cargo to be shipped north. That cargo will be submitted into the cargo system tomorrow, Monday, to begin its journey back to Colorado. We will be shipping seven crates and four pallets of instruments and equipment. USAP will ship everything to Port Hueneme, California, by a vessel ship, and then I will arrange for the freight to cover the last leg to Colorado with the cargo likely arriving in late April.

Given that there is a chance this could be my last trip to Antarctica, I am also trying to capture and experience things that I enjoy the most about life in Antarctica. However, these efforts are also in conflict with the work needed to finish up the season, as well as some work that needs to be done with some projects back in Colorado. I am hoping to walk around McMurdo and take photos of the station as it is currently constructed as it will be very different if/when I return next as McMurdo is going to be rebuilt in the coming years. I hope to cover more of the McMurdo rebuild in my next post.