This is a super delayed post but it's a post nonetheless. I've been putting the blog writing on Wayne's plate since I've been so busy with work, but now he's busy with school! What are you gonna do?
In September of last year, I had the opportunity to spend 2 weeks on the North Slope for work. See "Prudhoe Bay" at the very north of the map? That's where I was.
The North Slope is known for it's bone chilling lows of -50F. Today, it's -17F there. Anchorage, on the other hand, 13F. So, it's generally much colder than what I'm used to. September, however, pretty darn nice. By pretty darn nice, I mean like 40's or so.
I stayed at a "Camp." Yeah, just like it sounds. You're flown in and flown out. There's no neighboring towns or even roads to said nonexistent towns. Just you and some tundra. And polar bear (which I did NOT see, much to my dismay). This is a camp.
These large modular type buildings are connected to others to create a mini city with everything you need to stay for 2 weeks and work your butt off.
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| Cafeteria |
So, the next series of pictures is the 24hr, fully stocked snack room that I obsessively took pictures of to show Wayne just how much food was there!
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| Overview - one side |
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| Overview - other side |
A never-ending supply of chips:
A never-ending supply (this photo was taken at night before they restocked!) supply of donuts, cookies and desserts.
Bananas, honey, cereal, cup of soup, oatmeal, peanut butter, bagels, syrup. Everything you could want for breakfast and then some.
An assortment of sandwiches, hard boiled eggs, chicken nuggets, hand-made burritos and tamales, soft pretzels (a giant nacho cheese dispenser was available and on hand with hot cheese), vegetables, breakfast sandwiches.
Every kind of milk/juice and yogurt you could imagine.
Oh yeah and movie popcorn with hot butter and other flavorful accessories:
I guess the only thing I didn't take a picture of was the hot soup station, the soft serve ice cream station, the refrigerator full of ice cream sandwiches, and other frozen ice cream items and the soda fountain.
Here's what a bedroom looked like. This is where I stayed:
As you can see it's TINY. Enough room for a bed and that's it. The TV belonged to 1 of the 2 men that normally share this room. They rotate 2 weeks on/2weeks off so they share the room. Apparently both men were off for whatever reason, so I shared their room. They have a cleaning service that comes and changes your sheets and cleans the bathrooms. I was a little germ-phobed out. I wore my thongs into the shower and always had at least socks on while on the carpet!
The bathrooms are split up with a toilet, sink and mirror on one side:
And a shower on the other side:
Surprisingly, although it's called the North "Slope" that does not in any way mean it's anything but FLAT! I know, weird, but true. The north slope is super flat. It makes for great sunrises though:
One more fun pic: I lost my toenail while on the slope. It had nothing to do with the location and everything to do with Wayne and I messing around on the mall escalators a few weeks prior to this trip. There's a lesson here somewhere.
There's more photos to show but kids these days can't concentrate for longer than 20 seconds straight, so come back for North Slope - Part 2 in one week!
Heidi
&
Wayne
&
Wayne
