Saturday, September 16, 2006

November 23, 1975: Sunday

Slept ‘til almost twelve. I needed that.

Got up. We couldn’t do anything today because Leon needed the truck to take things to Marble Point and watch over the D-4 and sled full of heavy things.

I drive over with parts of the drill shack. Fearless Fred is my co-pilot.

We unload it, pull casing off the sled, and pile it up while Jeff and Terry unload the heavies.

At home they’ve got things set up for a trial run. The big blue doovery we looked for is our test weight. It’s a success. Nothing goes in the hole that’s not supposed to.

We have a very long radio sched. Off and on from six o’clock to nine-thirty. Most of it is Contingency Contingency Plans.

We get the corer to work. It’s a big huge weight with a screw on a length of pipe that holds a core catcher and the plastic tube. We have no luck at all. The thing must be bouncing off the sponge mat.

So our options are to survey the Ferrar Valley Extension hole and run a current meter and an Eckman grab sampler down a seal hole. Dr. Treves thinks this is important. So I’ll do it, even if I don’t agree that the hassle is. Perhaps I’ll change my mind if next year or the year after happens. I’ll be glad I did it. But I can’t put off Elementary Field Mapping and Stratigraphy forever.

We need some things on the helo flights. In priority, a Primus stove (because we’ll be in a Scott Tent for twelve hours), Nalgene bottles, a current meter (ours is broke) and an orange peel grab sampler.

We’re not going home until Tuesday. Bob takes off tomorrow. Bio-Mike doesn’t mind.

They’re using 590 again tomorrow so the four of us load up the rest of the drill shack, some empty barrels, and go over to Marble Point so that the truck will be free one hour tomorrow.

The truck will be used, anyway, tomorrow.

Get back and have a discussion about environmental monitoring.

I don’t believe it. I don’t believe it. Nebraska lost to Oklahoma 35-10. Such is life.

Oh, I forgot. We needed some Mogas to run the winch. Kathy went back to get the ski-doo to get it. Jim wanted the key’s today. Got rather upset when I flatly refused. Told him he could probably take the key from me, but I wouldn’t give it to him. He threatened to make sure no one would be able to use the ski-doo. She couldn’t get the ski-doo started, so she walked over and picked up a Mogas can and started walking over to the seal hole. I unpiled the sled and raced over to have her put it on it. “Chivalry is not dead,” said Bio-Mike. So when I got to Kathy, I noted, “You’ll never be able to get that all the way over there.”

That made her “mad.” And she smiled and said, “That did it. I will carry it all the way over.”

And she did, much to my protesting, “Well, if you’re going to carry it, you might as well sit down.”

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