Our experience here at MDRS is quickly coming to an end. It is difficult to believe that this crew's time together is already almost done. But the fact is getting harder and harder to ignore. Mission support is sending us Habitatshut down instructions. Charles Frankel arrives in Hanksville tomorrow with his French television crew. And a group will be arriving Saturday afternoon to get instructions from us on limited Hab operations after we leave. Yes, our work is almost done here. It will be hard to say goodbye.

Certainly we are all looking forward to being back home in more comfortable surroundings, around friends and family. Over the last few days I have noticed myself glancing more often at the pictures I brought here of my wife and son. Caleb just turned 11 months old two days ago and before I left he was becoming proficient at walking about a dozen steps, losing his balance and falling down. Seeing my little boy again will be great. I expect the falling down to be largely missing from his repertoire.

And next week my wife and I will go to an ultrasound appointment to see if we will be buying pink or blue for our second child. Those will be wonderful things to return home to.

But most of the time here at MDRS there is so much work to do that we do not have the opportunity to think about our loved ones, let alone miss them. The only time my mind drifts back to life on Earth is at night, in the dark, listening to my CD player before falling off into a deep, satisfying sleep. Almost every evening my music of choice has been Springsteen's 9/11 influenced, The Rising. I suppose the songs of faith, love and sacrifice help remind me of the other motivating factors in my life and keep me connected to them.

Emotionally I would be fine extending our little experiment for another 14 days. I feel that our work here is just getting started. The crew knows the routine and things almost run automatically. Our biology team keeps finding points of interest on the map but we have run out of time to visit them. I am excited by the EVA dust contamination data I am getting and am anxious for more. Today's rain soaked EVA eliminated one of my data points. There is still so much we could do. I wish we could fit more than the two remaining EVA's onto our plate but on Saturday at noon our Martian surroundings turn back into the Utah desert.

So in two days I will reluctantly start packing, preparing to leave MDRS. I will be taking so much back with me; the memories, the lessons learned and the friendships made. It will take me weeks to analyze all my data. My hope is that the rest of the crew feels that they have been enriched both personally and professionally by the experience as well. I know I will always treasure the things I take back from MDRS. I wonder where my wife will let me put the Incinolet.