payton's final sampling trip of the season was back up in the great artesian basin, on the western edge of the simpson desert and off the oodnadatta track. gone for another two weeks, we had a number of back up plans in case i went in to labor early (i was 34 weeks pregnant when he left and having delivered nova at 36 1/2 weeks, we were potentially cutting it close). all was mellow, however, and i had the help of the gardner parents, bill and chris, during this stint.
payton et al were drilling and sampling core in yet another beautiful, remote and iconic australian outback setting...
All I have to say here is, other than the killing people thing, I know what war feels like now. To sum up, its cold and you don't sleep very much. One thing I learned, never be the only vacuum tech on a 24 hour drilling program.
before: new steel-toed rossi elastic-sided boots for drilling
drilling (everyone worked 12 hr shifts while in the field - that's fourteen 12s! ugh - and despite setting swags apart from the drill site, the noise could still be heard at camp. after the trip, i woke up to payton yelling "why aren't we drilling?!", thinking/dreaming the silence was due to the rig being shut down...)
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