Fortunately, we didn't have to leave at 4 AM the next morning (Friday, November 10) to get to our flight like the last time I went. I think this might be because we were scheduled to fly on the C-17, also called a Globemaster III. The flight to McMurdo on this plane takes 4 hours as opposed to the 6 hour flight of the LC-130 (or Hercules).

We caught a shuttle at 5:30 AM (okay, so that isn't much better!) and went back to the CDC to put on our EWC clothes, put stuff in our carry-on bags, and do whatever preparation we needed to. I chose to leave one of the CDC bags and use my own, so I put everything from the orange bag into mine. I donned Big Red, as did many other people, so I wouldn't have to carry it around. Wearing this and the insulated ski bibs, a polar fleece jacket, big FDX boots and thick, thick socks, I was boiling up and felt all the water in my body escaping. After checking our bags, we then went into a room and were free to go have breakfast at the Antarctic Center. At least we were able to take off the warm jackets.


After eating breakfast, we came back to our waiting room and, well, waited. There were nice photographs of the various aircraft used for flying to and across Antarctica. My favorite was the DC-3. Though, I really like the Twin Otter too. We also watched a video in this room welcoming us to Antarctica and describing the environment and hazards. We were instructed on how to board the aircraft and how to deplane when we landed.



Finally, we were told it was time to board the aircraft. We had to have our carry-on bags scanned at this point. There was also a dog being led around, sniffing our bags for illegal items. The dog was a really cute black lab and, even though he was working, he also responded quite well to pats on the back and cheery hellos, as well as to praises from the guard leading him around.




We were told while standing in line that there was a "bit of a delay" with the airplane. Of course, we all thought this meant we would be sitting around for an hour or, worse, not going at all. This has definitely been known to happen. Fortunately, we only waited for 10 minutes or so and then we were loaded onto buses.