In the rush to beat the bad weather yesterday afternoon and evening, I wasn’t able to to a post. Winds were high enough that they destroyed the awning on our base camp (above). During the cold and rain, Brett made us a nice hot chili dinner:

Brett’s Camp Chili

1 can each of refried beans, pinto beans, black beans, dark red kidney beans, Great Northern beans, butterbeans, fiesta corn, and diced chili peppers

A splash of bourbon

2 tbsp safflower

A dash of hot sauce

1 tsp of chipolte pepper

1/2 to 1 tsp of cayenne pepper

2 tsp cumin

1/2 tsp paprika

1 lb ground aviform archosauromorph (that is, turkey) or other ground meat

Brown the meat, then add everything else, simmer until hot. Serve with cheddar cheese, parmesan cheese, bread, corn chips, sour cream, or whatever else strikes your fancy. Feeds 6.

The bones were fortunately in good shape after the bad weather, and this morning we were able to define the margins of our second jacket:

I still don’t know what this is. There is certainly part of a baleen whale lower jaw, but there are also a bunch of other bones, at least some of which seems to be from a whale (or more than one). I decided we’d be better off taking it all back to the museum and sorting it out later. So today we made the top jacket for these bones.

Here’s the completed top jacket, with bracing bars on top. Notice that the plaster wraps under the bones; that’s how we keep the bones from falling out when we turn the jacket over, hopefully tomorrow.