Where's Paul?: How do you descibe amazing??

How do you describe something that is amazing. Really, I struggled with that all day. It is now about 2300 on Sunday here at McMurdo Station, Antarctica. I have been thinking about what to write all day since my tour of the area. So lets start from the beginning. I woke at around 0630 this morning and went and grabbed a bagel and some previously frozen cream cheese (if you don't know what I'm talking about, grab some Philly cream cheese at the store and freeze it then thaw it and put it on a bagel).....yeah.....not good, but it's what I had and let's face it....I was hungry. That and a bowl of cheerios made my morning bright. I lied there, in fact it was Melissa being available on IM that made me happy first thing, but the cheerios made it nice too. So I spent the morning answering emails until about 1100 when the area manager for the station who works with me took me on a tour of the station, the NASA base, the Kiwi (New Zealander's) base, and the two airfields. WOW! How do you describe it the amazing???? Seriously, this place is extra-ordinary! Note that I separated extra and ordinary so you get it... Extraordinary is really an understatement. Antarctica is the closest to being on another planet...figuratively and literally.

This place is like no other on the Earth. I know that when I travel to South Pole and Palmer Station I will be saying the same thing, but damn it's pretty here. It is also a place that bends the senses around reality. There is this thing called Fata Morgana that basically is a "superior mirage" that makes the edges of the mountains surrounding this area look like walls. I tried to capture it in the last picture on this posting, but really it doesn't do it justice. When you look at the "walls" you get how big an area this really is. Looking out at these pictures, you'll see airfields and huts. These places are actually incredibly far away. The mountains behind the last photo are in fact over 70 miles away from where I took this photo! The airfields that looked so close to me on a ridge, were in fact almost an hours drive away. I thought long and hard about what to say here. I even went to the local bar, Gallagher's, to talk to people who've been here for quite a while and I really don't know what else to say other than - look at the pictures and be in awe like I am!