Saltwater and sea air

In a recent email, poet Tim Mason, complaining about his spring in New England this year, said “It has been a herpes kind of winter, drizzly and drippy and gray and it just won’t go away.”We know just what he’s talking about, but we’ve had to face the fact that we just can’t go on putting some things off while we wait for the season to advance.

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As usual, the meeting room, dimmed for the inevitable reciting of the contents of PowerPoint slides, was too dark for decent available-light photography.

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One of the requirements for PWSRCAC board members is that they regularly take a tour of the Alyeska Pipeline Terminal there in Valdez. Since the RCAC is responsible for overseeing the handling and transport of the oil from the pipeline, this makes sense.

Steve’s been on the tour several times before, but I have never been allowed to go, what with being a security risk due to not being formally affiliated with the organization. This time, however, the board was about to vote on accepting me as an Actual Volunteer on an Actual Committee, and so my personal threat level was suitably reduced.

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We left on Tuesday afternoon to fly over to Valdez for the Prince William Sound Regional Citizen’s Advisory Council quarterly board meeting. Leaving town, it was clear how much of winter still retains its grip on the landscape.

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Yeah, still cold. Cold isn’t whinge-worthy at this time of year at night, but 30s in the daytime aren’t moving the thaw along very briskly. Plus, since the big blow in the middle of the week, the air is, well, someone else’s. We have better air than this nasty pink dusty stuff.

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Kaylee is just underwhelmed with watching the lousy weather out her window.

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This morning was a bit slow but it has just picked back up. There was a rig move going on over on the spine road and all my trucks were stacked up waiting for it to clear. In the last few minutes five loads came in all together and now we are scrambling to unload them and turn them around. About 90% of what needs to be here before the road goes out is here and there is room for the rest. But there will be some creative stacking involved.

Yesterday I went over to the Conoco base at Kuparuk Operations Center to talk to Mike, an old friend who is their exploration drilling field supervisor. (larger version of photo)

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