Because Crew 35 never got its two replacement crewmembers, Crew 35 was down to a five man team, and following the rule that no man goes anywhere alone on Mars, Commander Gregory decided it was not safe to either send one man alone in the Mars Society truck or leave one man alone in the Hab. Health and Safety Officer Broering agreed --- one man falling down the stairs in the Hab could wait hours for rescue, and one man driving back cannot self-rescue the truck, as Hugh and Anthony demonstrated on their arrivial. On this basis, Commander Gregory ordered a lock-down of the Hab, set the webcam to monitor the approach to the Hab to permit remote observers to detect unauthorized personnel, and gathered the team for a five-man out-of-sim EVA to SLC.

Lock-down of the hab was done powered up to maintain the remote monitorability of the site. Commander Gregory jury- rigged a pair of sunglasses and supports to enable the webcam to look out the main portal over the command desk to monitor the Greenhab and the approach to the MDRS. (Sunglasses were necessary to enable the webcam to see in the bright sunlight). All crew-supplied equipment was removed from the power grid and all nonessential equipment powered down. We locked up the front and rear airlocks, being careful to lock the padlock first and test the key prior to performing the actual lock of the doors.

Prior to leaving Lovellville (Hanksvile to Earthlings) we stopped by Don Foutz's Whispering Sands Motel to drop off kitchen rags for laundering (which Hugh has said he will pay for out of his own pocket and invited the crew to add in anything of theirs as it was his treat). Unfortunately other materials which needed to be forwarded to Paul Graham were buried in underneath baggage of our departing crew mates and will have to be delivered tomorrow.

The trip went well. We used Hugh's GPS to calibrate the speed of the Mars Society truck and found that the speedometer was consistently reading seven miles per hour high, so then when it read 60 MPH you were really only doing 53MPH. Knowing this, we were able to maintain a steady speed. We also used the GPS to record waypoints along the route.

During the trip, Crew Scientist Francis interviewed exiting HSO Broering about his information needs at the station, and then discussed the results with XO Rehnberg and the rest of the crew. This exchange was extremely productive and will be reported on Tuesday as part of Francis's Information Systems report.

We stopped at the recommended refueling point at Price and gassed up the truck. We observed that driving the truck at the actual speed limit consumed somewhat more gasoline but not enough to significantly impact the trip. We then proceeded through the pass at Soldier's Peak, where the views were outstanding, though a mysterious bang disturbed us as we were coming down from the summit. Traffic and weather were good. The overall trip, including brief stops, lasted approximately four hours.

We stopped by the Airport Comfort Inn to allow Saka and Broering to check in, where they were charged a higher rate. When Hugh found out it, he stepped in and sorted it out by ID'ing himself, calling up his own Mars Society rate reservation and then saying, These two young lads are my crew and also from Mars Society. They promptly were given the proper rate. We then went into SLC for a crew farewell dinner. We chose Thaifoon, a well-decorated Thai restaurant in the Gateway mall, a beautifui open air structure beautifully decorated in honor of the 2002 Olympic Games.

This choice of restaurant enabled the crew to replenish the supply of books and DVDs at the Hab, as many of the DVDs that Artemis catalogued at the beginning of the refit have not yet been found during the cleanup. Therefore, Francis replaced the Hab's copy of Red Mars and picked up The Joy of Cooking for the kitchen, and Gregory replaced the missing copy of Red Planet.

After this, Gregory, Rehnberg and Francis said fond farewells to Saka and Broering and then turned to the task of replenishing the supplies in the Hab. We focused on four categories of supplies:

• Cleaning materials to finish the post-refit cleanup, including mop, cleansers, paper towels
• Extended supplies to compensate for additional food consumed while we hosted the existing refit team members
• Replacement food for "stock" Hab supplies consumed that Crew 35 did not purchase
• Kitchen supplies, such as dishrags, measuring cups, icetrays and so on.

The entire shopping trip, counting books, DVDs, and food, took less than an hour, and the crew then headed south, marking waypoints on the GPS. During the trip Francis recorded the Commander's Checkin and EVA 8 report on a laptop computer Francis brought for this purpose.

While the trip was once again beautiful in the moonlight, we were again disturbed by a bang coming down from the summit of Soldier's Peak. After some discussion and experimentation Gregory found that the bang was closely associated with taking his foot off the gas at speed --- as often happens when you start down the hill. Gregory diagnosed this as a backfire when gas was flowing through the system, and sure enough many miles later on another downslope Francis visually spotted a backfire at the same time as the sound.

Also, the truck's brake warning light has come on. We checked the truck's brake fluid when we first noticed this last weekend during our arrival but there appeared to be no issue. The brakes are somewhat boggy and shudder during hard braking and the brake light is on all the time now, making driving difficult at night. The truck is probably badly in need of a brake job and as a result Gregory took it slower on the return trip.

Nevertheless, we all got home safely at approximately 2:30am, and the Hab was in as good a condition as we left it. Gregory raced inside on our arrival and noted that the web cam had indeed caught our driving up to the HAB.

Lessons Learned and Recommendations:

• USB extenders enable webcam to see most of hab
• Sunglasses enable webcam to see in sunlight
• Webcam can monitor approach to Hab
• Do not leave one person alone in Hab
• Blue truck needs brake job badly