Only in Antarctica Part Deux

Back by popular demand (by us), here are some more fun, weird, and interesting facts about life in Antarctica:

Fata Morgana: The fata morgana is a type of "superior mirage" appearing right above the horizon line.  It is caused when the light has to pass through different temperature layers, thus compressing and stretching the light rays.  In polar regions on very cold days, the fata morgana can sometimes be seen when looking across ice sheets.  We often see this mirage across the Ross Ice Shelf towards the Royal Society Mountains.  In this picture, the ice edge meets what appears to be very vertical cliffs at the horizon line and above are the mountains.  Those cliffs are a mirage and that image is being stretched to appear as cliffs.  We have seen the same thing happen when a vehicle drove across the horizon line and the vehicle looked like a moving two story building! Note: Chris and I can never remember the name Fata Morgana so we usually refer to it as the "mufasa francheesie".  

Life in the 90's:  As most of you could guess, there is no cell phone service down here in Antarctica, but communication is not dead.  Nope, far from it.  Here at McMurdo it is common to hear someone call to a friend, "Hey page me when you need the key".  Zack Morris would be very happy to find out that pagers are still a thriving means of communication here at McMurdo.  So is paging someone "boobs" during a meeting.  I'm just waiting for when Tomagotchi's make their comeback since we don't have pets here either:)

"Extra building materials?  Check Fu Manchu":  Equipment and materials that do not need to be stored in a reasonable environment are simply stored outdoors.  There are aisles and aisles of materials and equipment.  Construction materials, tools, extra parts for equipment that hasn't been used since the 70's....everything.  Most places use a simple letters/numbers system for easy organization.  Keeping things interesting and fun is an important part of McMurdo culture, so a simple letters/numbers system would not suffice.  In one area of storage each aisle is called a stash and to distinguish between the different stashes they are named after mustache (or 'stache) styles.