11 Feb 2014

Definitely at the point in the field assignment where I hate this place. It usually happens about one week in. It's because I'm here long enough to be over the excitement of it being new, but not close enough to it being over for me to be looking forward to it.

My last shift should be the evening/morning of the 25th/26th (I'm working from 7am to 7pm) after which I'll ride with the day geologist back to Saskatoon. Ideally we'll get to Saskatoon around noon and fly out around 3 or 4, but I may end up staying the night in Saskatoon and flying home on the 27th.

Last night we finished drilling a hole. The drillers kept saying we were deep enough, but we weren't. I kept having them go and then finally we reached the fish scale unit, which is an interbedded silty shale unit with calcareous sands. We contacted it around 91 m. I was happy when we finally did and told them to go a little deeper to confirm, but then we were done.

The night before I kinda just sat around in my truck for much of the night. It was the coldest night since I've been here, getting down to -38 C. Hopefully I never experience anything that cold again. Last night wasn't too bad. It was more like -26 C.

How cold is -38? Well, your nose hairs freeze instantly if you inhale through your nose. Your pee steams very heavily. Exposed parts of your body go numb in about 45 seconds. Luckily I spend most of my time in a heated core shed that stays about 10 C. But when I do have to go out in the -38, how do I dress? Like this! Pro tip: wearing glasses all the time makes your eyeballs not hurt.

I miss my life in Salt Lake.