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except in direct emergency. Gh. asked why. He said the Kiwis have enough to do on their own. She asked if that was only reason. He answered, that, well it makes us look bad too. If our parties ask Scott Base to relay message to MCM. There is a recent history of this. During the helo grounding & soon after, field parties were stranded & no reason given except weather. On Erebus, Phil Kyle waited to be evacuated & finally got impatient. When told no helo would fly he said, "But I can see McMurdo; I can see McMurdo." He lodged a formal complaint & received a curt reply to the effect of "OK, do it." Then he called Scott Base and entered a formal complaint - an international affair.

After the radio interview -- in which the office said he assumed Ghislaine was a N. Zealander. Then English. And when she said Belgium, he said ok great -- he has neighbors who are from Lithuania, as though they were neighbors -- I went to the P.O. and learned that the mail had already gone to Willie Field. Oh, well, I put in my fistful for the next plane.

Then we went to pack our food supplies for the Allan Hills.  Leslie, at the Commissary, is very pleasant, relaxed, unflappable. We [[strikethrough]] made [[/strikethrough]] taped up cardboard boxes and began taking cans & jars off the shelves - more or [[strikethrough]] lee [[/strikethrough]] less according to our list. It was a frenetic scene for about 2 hours and a half, but we completed all but the frozen foods. Will pack them, quickly, in the freezer tomorrow.

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For the 1st time since my arrival here, I began to have the delightful sense of being slightly hungry. We had beer & wine ~ 5:15 & went to dinner by 5:40. Chicken in 1/2s, baked or barbecued. A fine meal. Ate w. John Schutt and had a long, frank talk about the program. He doubts we can trek to Elephant Moraine. A fuel drop is necessary and Bill never asked for one. Sledge tipover inevitably, and last year it took 6 men in all their combined might to right them again. This year we would have to unpack them to set them up. They weigh 700 to 1000 lbs. Schutt would like to do C-130 recon. over that territory. He believes they saw good landing sites on last year's trek. How could we take responsibility for requesting that during the regular flights to NVL? I urged him to do it -- or said I would. Early in their relationship Bill apparently told him to leave the thinking about meteorites to him and do the worrying about crevasses. (John had wanted to detect mets. in the Sastrugi). Yet the definite plans (and maps) for even the rest of this season are not clearly thought out and supplied.

After dinner, John came to ask my advice. Should he request a C-130 Recon. from Ken Moulton and would I come to chalet w. him to back him up. We went over ~ 8:00 and found Ken. Described our wants, pointed to area on map, & got general encouragement. Then we came home