Heading to the "Harsh Continent"

After getting our Extreme Cold Weather (ECW) gear the day before and falling in love with our Montei's beer, it was time to get on with it. We were headed to the McMurdo station on Ross Island. After weeks of reading the official information on the United States Antarctica Program (USAP) Participant Guide and looking at the "real deal" on http://www.bigdeadplace.com/, I thought we were ready. After all, I was a huge fan of John Carpenter's movie, "The Thing", a fan of the video game (complete with all the tips to succeed), and I have the necessary sick sense of humor to think that this would be fun. I wanted to go to Antarctica.

Our morning started with a wake-up call at 4:30AM so we could be ready by 5:30AM for our ride to the Center to pick up our gear to make the 9AM time for departure of our C-17. After waking up, we then received a call that our flight would be delayed three hours. After taking a cab ride to the site, we got our gear gathered and put it on by 10AM where we found out that the weather at McMurdo was not cooperating. Long story short, we finally left around 2:30PM. We were fortunate enough to sit and have breakfast and lunch at the cafeteria there. We were lucky enough to be with a producer from PBS filming a Nova episode and a writer from MSNBC (http://www.msnbc.msn.com/id/15834019/) who were focused on global warming. In fact, two of the folks we traveled with were captured in their online photos in the front row of seats. After approximately five hours and slightly cramped conditions, we arrived at our destination--Pegasus Airfield outside of McMurdo.

We had arrived.