A quiet day, too quiet, really. Our all-terrain rovers remain parked in front of the Hab. The pressurized rover is our only exploration vehicle, and at the moment no one has planned an EVA. Some of us spend the morning catching up on email, writing reports, and surfing the net. Work in the GreenHab continues, but not at the pace Kathleen Johnson and Commander Frederick have been attending to it. Over the past four days engineer Alyssa Rzeszutko has taken it upon herself to organize the lower level, a monumental task ordinarily beneath someone about to receive her aeronautical engineering degree. Thanks to her, the bathroom now has a nifty, to put it politely, "tissue compacter." The tool bench looks like a tool bench now. Hundreds of PVC pipefittings are sorted and stored in labeled Ziploc baggies. And today, Alyssa is buffing and polishing the scratched helmets so that it's possible to see through them.

On the back of everyone's mind are cookies. My mother had sent me off with dozens of cookies, which I shared with the crew and were gone soon after the Yuri's Night celebration. My wife passed along this information, and my mother got down to work baking more cookies, which are supposed to arrive some time today. Gregorio Drayer, who probably can never be an astronaut because it would require a separate heavy lift vehicle to satisfy his tremendous appetite, has taken to calling the expected cookie delivery the "cookie supply module," or CSM. We have been trying to contact Don Foutz all day to confirm the delivery, but he is unavailable. There is only one thing for us to do if we want cookies. At around 16:00, we hastily plan an EVA to the Whispering Sands Motel, the CSM drop site. We also decide to do some grocery shopping at the Johnson Market in Hanksville because the pantry's offerings are severely limited to various varieties of canned baked beans.

Assuming my designation as Photo Droid-not an easy job since my programming, apparently, also requires me to perform any number of menial tasks-I haul my photo equipment into the pressurized rover, clean it out (has any previous crew done so much house cleaning of other crews' messes?), and warm it up in preparation for the EVA team now depressurizing in the airlock. The rover performed well (it could use some new shock absorbers in front, and the U-joint clanks when shifting gears), and the CSM was successfully recovered. At the market, Alyssa put $60 worth of groceries on her credit card. Acting as translator, I helped members of the EVA team communicate with curious Hanksville inhabitants. The EVA returned to the Hab as evening light slanted over the bare hilltops, turning them pink and red. The mission exceeded all expectations, and we are planning another EVA with the pressurized rover for tomorrow.