It's started again...

Today the summer fieldwork season began... the C-130 (specifically, a Marine Corps KC-130T, tail QH 3310) landed at 1pm and left around 4pm from Moffett Field, heavily loaded with a Humvee, a disassembled greenhouse, tents, ATV servicing equipment, and $4K of groceries purchased at Costco. It will overnight in Edmonton, at the airport (wave northward) and proceed to Resolute tomorrow morning. The first wave of NASA folks will follow them in 16 days.

Most of the groceries were purchased today -- Pascal and Lori and I went with a NASA truck and brought in three large red flatbed dollies... hundreds of lb of PowerBars, flour, toilet tissue, Ziplock bags, olives, and about a thousand Ramen packets. This is to feed 30 people x 40 days up there, with minimal resupply. Quote from bystander in Costco: "what are you going to do with all of that stuff, go to Antarctica?" "Well, yes, but actually to the Arctic..."

After getting the truck chosen for random searching (naturally) returning to base, we had to keep the Marines waiting until we could find security and get them to let me drive the truck out to the airplane. But it all fit... after I suggested putting the overage inside the Humvee, which was already on board. That saved us $1k in airfreight...

So, off to home now, sunburned after a day spent as a rather-overpaid buyer and truck driver...