The annual winter South Pole Booze Pull

This is an actual event held annually at the beginning of winter. The LC-130's flew in 20 pallets of beer, wine, liquor and soda a few weeks ago. Today's task was moving it from the temporary storage shed to inside the station. From there it will be stocked in the store. Beer is $6.50 a six pack, wine is $15.50 per bottle, and liquor sells for $30 a bottle. I enjoy a glass of wine nightly after dinner. I don't know who orders all this but it sure seems like an overload. I worked outside unloading the pallets. After 3 hours everyone was beat. I thawed in my room for an hour before dinner time. Fortunately a nice day was picked for this task. The South Pole was at the end of the first winter storm. Since we have an opposite weather pattern the temperature had actually risen to -40 degrees F from the -62 of a few days ago. And since there was no wind it was quite balmy.

As a bonus all of the loose beers and a few bottles of wine were served with dinner.

72 cases of Fat Tire beer per pallet. One of my favorites.

The South Pole is the driest location on the planet. Could have fooled me!

Part of the working party.

There were lots of broken boxes. It was tough picking up individual cans and bottles with frozen hands.

Sierra Nevada beer. There were two pallets of this and two pallets of Fat Tire. 72 cases on each pallet. There were also pallets of Coors Light along with an assortment of Speight's (New Zealand) beers.

The CAT driver had a nice warm job.

Finally some fine wines with a nice assortment of reds.

There were also pallets filled with liquor and various sodas and mixers.

Just call me Frosty.

Finally some red wine in the store.

One of my favorites. My daughter Jocelyn and I toured the Speight's Brewery in Dunedin on the South Island during our six week New Zealand bicycle tour last October

Looking outside my window during the first storm of the season.

The sun elevation is now under 9 degrees.

Sitting at my desk in the Network Operations Center. The room is very cold.