February 10^th 1999

Went through the normal routine today. Got up and set up the encoder and the camera. I got to take some pictures of the Spectrometer equipment. They are starting to wind dow n today. Today is the last day of the Primary science. There are some scientists back at Ames that collect the data that is sent from here and they evaluate it and make conclusions from the data. Next week the team will start the secondary science. One of the highlights of the day was we saw a RattleSnake. It was a baby, but we still kept our distance. It was right near where the camera was that was filming the Rover. There was a lizard near by also and it was not moving. We concluded that t he snake killed the lizard and then maybe got scared by us and hid and then came out a little later and ate the little lizard right up. It was quite cool.

It is hard to stay outside today. The wind is being brutal today. I am sitting in the car and once in a while the wind rocks the car a little. There is talk that the science team out here in the desert might have the day off tomorrow but it is skeptical. I will be working tomorrow though. They need the day off more than I do. Tomorrow n ight I will be driving up to Las Vegas to pick up another technician to help me out until next Wednesday. Her name is Jamie Silva. They haven't moved the Rover around too much today, but there is talk that they are going to make it do a long traverse u p the area that it is at. 7:00 Well they didn't do the traverse like they had talked about. The Rover sat in one spot for most of the day. They tore down early too.

We all went back to our motels at around 6:00. Hans wanted to celebrate the su ccess of the primary science. He said that the science team was happy with the data that they got at Ames. So we all sat around and talked for a while with some nice beverages and then went out to dinner. Cesar showed the team a card trick. It rea lly got Sergey's attention. I talked to one of the Geologists during the day about the spectrometers. I hope to interview him on Friday during the live event. He says that if he were not working it would be fine. Well that is all for now. I will r eport again tomorrow.

Seth