The Blue Moon - Hiking with Friends

We belong to a great group of people who organize hikes twice a week. We attend the weekend hikes, some of which I've featured earlier in the blog. Different people offer to lead a hike each week, planning out an itinerary and sometimes hosting a yummy pot luck afterward. This network of people are the social fabric that makes it so special to live here, these relationships are an important part of how we define home. In today's blog time I highlight some of the people who hold us together.

 

  

 

Fish Lake, 3 PM. Time to head back to the cabin.

Warm Gloves

This pair of light acrylic navy blue gloves are the standard liner gloves for the New Zealand Antarctic Service. My daughter received them in November as part of her clothing and equipment kit for her three week work/research sojourn at Scott Base in New Zealand's claim in Antarctica, the Ross Dependency. You can read more about her time there at her blog. After Erin's Christmas visit home she left them behind for me.

I like wearing these gloves. My warm outer mitts are now good to -40 C. There is a certain exotic climate cachet attached to these simple objects as official wear of the New Zealand Antarctic Service. But more important to me is the less tangible connection: they were issued to my daughter. Probably all parents live vicariously through their children's activities and achievements. I suppose that's why I enjoy wearing these gloves so much,  her hands were in them as she did her research, looked at seals and the other Antarctic things she tells us about.

Postage stamps of the Ross Dependency