Hello Debby,
When I think about the amount of time between then and now, the size of it seems pretty large... a lot of life... a lot of details. I don't think it's possible to tell the whole story well and it feels like giving you a synopsis will be pretty dry.I got out of Fayetteville because Pat Neary had been to Lander, Wyo. on a science trip in junior high school. Dave Neary and I put a lot of miles on his red Dodge van traveling the country after college and after Dave had connected into Lander, Wyo. through Pat. In the end, all three of us ended up in Lander because of the National Outdoor Leadership School.
I worked with NOLS for 11 years... living and working in the Rocky Mountains and surrounding region... teaching mountaineering, rock climbing, caving, desert living, a lot of other things. In part of 7 of those years with NOLS I worked horse packing... delivering re-rations to NOLS courses over a large part of the wild country in NW Wyoming. Through NOLS I met a fellow who had been to Antarctica working on the support side for National Science Foundation grantees doing scientific study there. For 20 years I did contract support work, 5 to 6 months a year, with the National Science Foundation in Antarctica. I've got good friends from "the ice" (Marylee Atkins and Tracy Stiehr) who worked with Wayne Trivelpiece out of Palmer Station (Antarctic Peninsula, below the tip of S.A.). That's thousands of miles from my part of Antarctica (Ross Sea, Ross Is., McMurdo Station).
I met Sarah in 1980... another NOLS instructor and horse packer, originally from Burlington, Iowa. Sarah worked with NOLS over 20 years. We were together in Antarctica for 18 years. Sarah still goes to the ice October through February. Sarah and I were married in 1987. The only kids we've had are horses and children of friends, informally adopted. To answer your question... "retired or still working?". I've never had what many consider a real job. Everything I've done in my life has been part time or short term. I "lived" NOLS for the 11 years but never put in more than 10 months in any 12. Since 1983, my first time in Antarctica, I've been semi-retired... some, Dave Neary for one, might say "semi-retarded"and that I've been that way for a lot longer. In February of 2003 I left the ice for the last time and became "fully-retarded".
Sarah and I have been building a house and shop, one peck at a time, as money allows, for years and still are. I'm building a custom rifle, forging and building damascus knives, talking to the wild bunnies that live in the piles of stuff around our place and wandering the country side looking to see what's there and how it feels.Do with this as you choose, Debby... post it all... "synopsize" the synopsis... whatever... Mike Krall
