Beating the Truck

1-18-2023 Beating the truck… There’s a place on the trip from McMurdo Station to Williams Field that requires crossing over from land to water or in our case ice over water. We lovingly call it “the transition”. Kind of like passing from life to death it’s the most dangerous part of the trip. The risk of breaking through the ice is minimal but getting stuck in the mush is always a great risk this time of year because of “warm” temperatures. To help minimize the melting process the shuttle drivers stop before the transition at a cleaning station. The cleaning involves the driver going around the 15-passenger van with a 3 foot long 1-1/4 inch diameter dowel rod beating the living snot out of the van. Usually, no body damage is done because they are beating the wheel wells and the step ups on the van. After the “beating” you drive across 30 feet of rumble bars a process that rattles your teeth. They should have a disclaimer about people with bad backs, pregnant women etc. when you initially board the van. I’m not sure if the whole “beating” process is effective but clearly somebody thinks so and they clearly “beat” the need for it into the drivers’ heads because I’ve never seen one fail to “beat the truck”. At this point you must be thinking, it’s the end of the year and he must be running out of things to talk about! Maybe so, let me think about that for a while.

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