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We are less than 24 hours from Hobart and the end of this most amazing expedition. 

So, while the Wilkes Land Antarctic Expedition may have come to end,

Well folks, we are almost to the end. It is Saturday night and we have one more solid day before we roll into Hobart. The seas have been oddly calm. I was looking forward to the screaming fifties and the rolling forties - storms and adventure. But instead we have pea soup fog and glassy waters.

Like most of you, I've been watching videos and reading blogs about the Wilkes Land Expedition from my nice warm office and living room on shore.  Thanks to so many wonderful writers, photographers, videographers, and puppeteers (who knew?), the Expedition has really come alive! I feel like I've been able to participate without leaving home.

I was so lucky to have Steve ask me to help him with his video conferences yesterday. It was so fun to tell about our experience so far and to answer some of the questions from the students. And I see that some more questions have come in on my blog. All are really good - so I thought I would address them with a new blog today.

It was a frosty morning during this time of an ever weakening light from the Antarctic sun.  The spirits of this cold frozen land can now feel its withering rays as she fights to get above the horizon.  And even after she wins that battle, she struggles to rise and can only manage to hang low in the sky even when she's at her most powerful at the noon. 

So you think we've got a lot of Wilkes Land blogs here on thejr.org?  Yes, Steve Pekar, James Bendle, Stephanie Carr, Travis Hayden, and little Miss Lambchop are sharing their science adventures with everyone from children to grad students and families; in fact, our readership has increased 100%!

Hello All!  It’s been so long. I had some days when I worked pasted my 12 hours, and I became so tired, I had a hard time doing anything but going to bed. Other days it is just nice to read my book, or just go outside for a bit. We are getting close to end, which is good and bad. I have so many mixed feelings.

We tried and tried, but the spirits of the ice world would not let us through their door and to where we wanted to drill on the shelf.  It was here in the shallow environs that we hoped to be able to recover proximal records of the evolution of the ice sheet during the transition from the greenhouse world to icehouse world. 

For the last few days, we have been at the whims of the spirits of Antarctica.  We first had to flee from an approaching storm our most desired drilling site, the shelf site that will recover the Greenhouse sediments deposited in shallow waters.

A Valentine’s Day blog: