My World

Last night I finally got around to stitching together a panorama I took a week or so ago. Looking at it, I realized that it's a photo of what's essentially my entire world. I never venture further afield than what can be see in this shot.

(Click on it for a blowup - it's a little dark because, well, it was taken in the dark, and I wanted to give an accurate impression of how things look here.)

At one end of my daily commute sits the elevated station. This is where I eat, sleep, write blog posts, and - when time permits - socialize. A large fraction of the winterover population never leaves the station, so in relative terms, I'm quite mobile and well travelled.

Next to the station sits a small empty stretch of windblown snow, followed by the now drifted-over runway. On the far side of the runway sits the Dark Sector, which includes several buildings belonging to astronomy and cosmology experiments.

ASTRO, the now mostly-buried home to experiments back in the 90s, is the first sign that you've arrived in the dark sector. MAPO, now retired as a home for experiments, still houses the machine shop, where Dave the friendly machinist spends his days making bits to replace whatever breaks on station.

DSL and SPT are the last buildings you'll come across in the Dark Sector, with only Old Pole (the station which predates the old dome station) further out, buried somewhere in the frozen ocean beyond.

My whole existence is confined to a stretch of barren ice less than a mile end to end. I'm sure it'll get old eventually, but so far, my little world - with all it's beauties and challenges - feels more free, expansive, and open to me than anywhere else I've been.