Viewing page 17 of 94

This transcription has been completed. Contact us with corrections.

After dinner (6:00) we both got shampoos. I was quite chilly at dinner & ran home to get warm. Relaxed evening reading and talking.

[[underlined]] December 12, Saturday [[/underlined]]

Awakened & got up a few minutes before supper breakfast time : 7:00 AM, for us. It was snowing! Ground at McM all white. Met Gisela in toilet & she said she never saw it like this before -- not in 6 years. Wind blowing and many wearing parkas.

After breakfast we went to Radio shack to make an appt. to receive and learn how to use radio: Monday at 10:00 Then to chalet for the news of flights etc. Over there, a man came up to me & introduced himself [[underlined]] as John Schutt [[/underlined]]! And our grapevine had said he would not come in until Tuesday. He had been looking for us in Room 108.

We were committed to doing some hand laundry & using dryer but We all met half an hour later in the MMI lounge. He & Bob went to the "crater." It is not one. He has found no meteorites in N. Victoria Land. So it's to the Allan Hills. Meanwhile, Schutt will discuss w. Terry & others all this nonsense about landing us on the ice at Granite Harbor.

[[end page]]
[[start page]]

He thought we might go Wednesday --- the day after Granite Harbor. But he found that it is very unlikely we will go before Monday, the 21st. And unlikely that John & Ludolf will come in before Monday the 14th. And he doesn't believe for a moment we can go to Elephant Moraine in the time available after Bill arrives.

We went up to our cage in the Berg center and he showed us the boxes & gear we will camp with. Demonstrated lighting a stove. After lunch he gave us 2 lists of foods: one that of a 67-day party of 4, the other the inventory of what is in the cache at the Allan Hills. It is plenty. For about 1 1/2 hours Ghislaine and I went thru it listing what we would require of it. The idea was for us to decide what we wanted, draw down the cache first, carry the rest. We had a merry time. The Allan Hills is about to see gourmet cooking.

Afterward we went up to the Commissary. It was too late to pack boxes today but we got an idea of what is available. I grabbed the last small bottle of Lang, half-full, and learned that coffee will be hard to get when it is decafeinated (instant) or cafeinated (ground). They are out of scallops and salmon steaks.

Another thing we did today was to go to