The Best Day in Antarctica, EVER! Part I

The Waste Barn...

I must first start off by saying that it was the best day ever, even though it was two months ago!  I still recall everything like it was yesterday!  I had the day off and had a few plans;  I had scheduled of tour of the Waste Barn followed by Frisbee Golf and planned to finish off the day with a tour of Cape Evans and the Ice Caves (more to be explained later).

I leisurely woke up and had a nice quiet breakfast.  I headed over to the Waste Barn where a few of my friends worked.  It was just a little jaunt up the hill.  I met up with them just a break time was starting.  Perfect planning, right?  They sat around a table of goodies and snacks and chit-chatted about life, love, and the pursuit of happiness.  They were good people who appeared to have worked hard and play hard.  I got a tour of all of the excitement that takes place there.  It started off with the breaking of the glass.  As recycling is sorted, one of the types is glass and as a treat, the ‘Wasties’ as they call themselves, will ceremoniously break glass bottles (wine, beer, etc.) into large bins.  You must wear PPE (proper protective equipment) like ear protection and goggles.  It was exciting to watch, but even more exciting to try it mysefl.  I think I could do this for awhile!

After breaking glass and relieving any tension or stress I had, I learned about other parts of the job.  The Wasties sort recycling and box it up ready to be loaded onto the vessel that comes down once per year.  I think all of this stuff is taken back to the US (somewhere on the West coast) for processing.  They bundle corregated cardboard with this cool machine.

 

Hole number one…where it all began!

The cool view as we got started.

Davie attempting a hole in one on the third hole.

Lou also attempting a hole in one on the third hole. It’s good to have goals!

My treck to locate my frisbee. Yes, it was not meant to go up here.

Artifact I found while playing frisbee golf. Cute, hugh?

Alice and Ben breaking the glass recycling.

The view of the Waste Barn from the entryway. Not too big for what they do.

The result of corregated cardboard compressed into a nice stack to be transported back to the US.

All of the types of recycling that the Waste Barn deals with.

The official breaking of the glass. Note the PPE!

Next, I met up with Lou and Davie to learn about Frisbee Golf.  These are some of my coworkers that entertained the fact they could teach me this sport!  I have to give them credit for the attempt.

I quickly learned how fun frisbee golf could be.  For those of you unfamiliar with this game, you throw frisbees into predetermined holes around various places but in a set order with specific assigned holes.  There is scoring and pars just like in golf, but not a little go cart to tote me around from place to place.  As we began playing I realized that I needed to work on my frisbee throwing.  I found that the more I grunted, the better my throw would be.  I will mark that in my mental book for later use when I am lifting weights at the gym. 

We spent the afternoon laughing and enjoying the scenery.  I had seen places around town that I had not yet been to and tried to perfect the art of throwing the frisbee.  Let’s just say that I need some work before I go pro.