After waiting most of a week, we finally started getting our cargo on the first and second of November. The whole team went out to the Long Duration Balloon facility (LDB), on the ice shelf outside town, eager to get started. We unpacked and started getting ready for the upcoming onslaught of work. (This onslaught is my excuse for slowness in posting.) With a big team and help from the strong CSBF riggers, this went quite quickly.
Surveying our domain
Looking down from the mezzanine
Cargo arrives!
On the Cress, a vehicle that, with a passenger compartment instead of cargo, is often our ride to LDB
Let the unpacking begin!
Unpacking
Bill gets a special package with many varied layers of wrapping
Ed (the packer) is amused
More boxes
Light party
Somebody (BIll?) packed a light machine
Corn hole
Since our essential cargo didn't arrive, we had some time to kill. Lorenzo and I were the champions
Spectators
Antarctic cowboy
Extra building
A team of carpenters is constructing a very large tent for the third payload
Rigging shop
With tires
Insulated jumpsuit
Natalie scoffs at the cold. Scoffs!
Essential decorations
No highbay is complete without Nat's "Come and take it" flag
More flags
So many boxes
Ritually sacrificed good luck unicorn
A new one will be sacrificed soon
The cryostat has moved
Now it's crate bottom can be removed, and real work can begin.
SPIDER's six telescopes
All unpacked and ready to be worked on
Long Duration Balloon Facility
Our building is the first of two big ones
Island in a sea of white
We had a cool evening with overcast skies over the ice
CAT
Backhoe
Anne looking badass
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