Today marked our crew's last full day together, and we celebrated by finally breaking sim and heading out on a road trip to see some of the incredible sights that can be found in this part of Utah. So we headed out mid-morning, after having packed some sandwiches for a picnic lunch. We first stopped in Hanksville, where we got to say hi to our old friend Don Foutz, who was our local MDRS technical support before this year. In Hanksville we dropped off our trailer for Paul, who had requested to have it to bring ATV-2 to the shop. We were very happy to find that Paul had finally recovered from his accidental diesel ingestion yesterday.

We made our way to Goblin Valley State Park, where we entertained ourselves for a while with climbing and jumping on the mudstone “goblins” that are scattered through the area. Upon returning to V'ger, however, we had a small problem: an over-enthusiastic driver opened the driver's door a little too vigorously and nearly tore it off its hinges. In the driver's defense though, the door had been having issues for a very long time, and it could've happened to any one of us. Anyway, we were left with a driver's door which did not stay closed anymore.

We then made our way to Little Wild Horse Canyon, with the understanding that if we couldn't resolve the problems with the door once we reached the canyon we would immediately head back to Hanksville to get it fixed. V'ger had to do the round-trip to Salt Lake City twice in the next two days and we definitely cannot do that with a driver's door that won't stay closed. So upon reaching Little Rock Canyon, we quickly ate our lunches and got to work on the door. Our efforts were unfortunately proved to be fruitless though, and after a few last crew pictures were taken, we headed back to town.

Once in town, we went back to the Whispering Sands motel, where Don Foutz helped us make sense of what was going on with the door. He was also unable to fix it however, and said that the easiest thing would be to get a new (read “scrap-yard-found”) door. So we headed back to the Hab, knowing we'd need to find a way to secure that door closed upon our arrival.

Once back at the Hab, Jon was able to secure V'ger's door to the driver's seat. It won't open anymore, but at least it will stay closed while on the road. So now the driver will have to get in and out using the passenger doors.

Tonight, after reports are in and all other end-of-mission tasks have been completed, we are planning of having one final party. This is the last night that our whole crew will spend together in the Hab. Tomorrow morning Olathe is going to drive V'ger to Salt Lake City for the incoming crew's use. The incoming crew is then expected to arrive at the Hab around dinner time.