the ride home
Aug. 2nd, 2005 11:17 am![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jayJeff Jones (a JSC flight surgeon, formerly responsible for the Space Station crew) is doing research in planetary protection -- on microbe diffusion from the camp areas (current and the 1997-99 base location) on Devon Island. The surrounding soil is sterile... one may as well try to culture vermiculite. Except where humans have brought in bacteria and nutrients to support them in the soil... So Jeff took a set of careful soil samples and needed to keep them sealed and frozen for the trip back to Houston. Problem was, how to do this given six flights and customs and no dry ice in Resolute?
So... we kept them frozen in Polar Shelf's food freezer in Resolute, then packed in ordinary water ice for the seven hours and three hops to Edmonton. I had asked for help, andmouseman met us at the airport there with 7kg of dry ice that purplejavatroll had obtained for us. Which we had to repack before Jeff and I went separate ways... we ended up doing so by dumping the wet ice in the curb outside our hotel on Whyte Ave. The groups of slightly-inebriated people wandering around the crowded neighborhood on a Saturday night seemed unfazed by two guys with white vapor clouds and coolers on the sidewalk:
Chris took Jeff and I to a nearby comedy show ("Oh, Susanna!", and Jeff got a piece of a grilled-cheese sandwich cooked onstage) and he and Michelle took me out for brunch Sunday and off to the airport (note the purple cooler):
I had a layover in Seattle, and sawwho_is_she there for a few hours. She took me to see her workplace, at the doll museum:
and later she and Matt reintroduced me to Mexican food after a month-long absence. :)
Andpatgreene was there to hug me at the airport, and um, cuddle soon after we got home around midnight. :)
Yesterday, the cooler was shipped to Houston by overnight courier (I'd brought it home as checked baggage, to get around possible customs issues).
So... we kept them frozen in Polar Shelf's food freezer in Resolute, then packed in ordinary water ice for the seven hours and three hops to Edmonton. I had asked for help, and
mouseman met us at the airport there with 7kg of dry ice that purplejavatroll had obtained for us. Which we had to repack before Jeff and I went separate ways... we ended up doing so by dumping the wet ice in the curb outside our hotel on Whyte Ave. The groups of slightly-inebriated people wandering around the crowded neighborhood on a Saturday night seemed unfazed by two guys with white vapor clouds and coolers on the sidewalk: Chris took Jeff and I to a nearby comedy show ("Oh, Susanna!", and Jeff got a piece of a grilled-cheese sandwich cooked onstage) and he and Michelle took me out for brunch Sunday and off to the airport (note the purple cooler):
I had a layover in Seattle, and saw
who_is_she there for a few hours. She took me to see her workplace, at the doll museum:and later she and Matt reintroduced me to Mexican food after a month-long absence. :)
And
patgreene was there to hug me at the airport, and um, cuddle soon after we got home around midnight. :)Yesterday, the cooler was shipped to Houston by overnight courier (I'd brought it home as checked baggage, to get around possible customs issues).
