Soon I Will Fall

Fall of 2003,

One of the reasons I love fall. It is a time to shed the old and make room for the new. Mother Natures house cleaning if you will.

Winter Comes

Winter arrived on the North Slope today. It arrived on the wings of 30+ mph winds. If this is any indication, it will be a long tough winter. It was as though someone turned on a light switch. Sadly, I know that many of the young tundra swans were not ready for the change. The parents will follow there instincts and head south, leaving their young to the mercy of Mother Nature. How painful that must be. You know they must feel the pain as they are a loving creature. They mate for life and will not take on another mate if death should separate them. The loss of their young would be unbearable. Next year, we will look up toward the vast Alaska sky; we will see the pairs of swans return to continue the cycle. It is truly an amazing story in the book of life.

Camp????

Images by Randy J. Cole / Random Stone Productions 3/2003

Some of you might wonder what I am referring to when I mention the camp that I live in on the North Slope. This is the BOC (Base Operations Camp) on the west side of the Prudhoe Bay oil field complex. It is more like living in a cruise ship than a camp. The rooms are comfortable warm and nice. This camp has around four hundred or so beds and most of them are private rooms but you share a bathroom with the room next to you as well as the shower. There are three main camps on this field but more are being built. The BOC actually has a swimming pool that doubles as a source of water for fire protection. The workout areas are pretty nice as well. This camp has an upper level work out area that includes volley ball court and top of the line tread mill, rowing, free weights and so on. It also has an indoor running track. The food is remarkable as well. Sunday is prime rib night, and Tuesday is steak night. It gets pretty easy to become used to working in this kind of environment. Of course if you have a job that takes you outside you quickly find that the companies have to provide nice services to compensate for the 70 below weather that we will be having soon.

Randy