Seems there's good work to be made by stalkers out in the salt lake area, even if it is working for the Order to help them set up survey posts in spots where they won't get ate up by ants and other nasty critters during the night... seems a lot of the experienced folks either split, or got promoted away from non-field positions and all the inexperienced people are now the field grunts. Made for good busywork while waiting on Leishey to catch up with us.

He managed to find us a humvee for the trip, some modified snow treads, and a a couple weeks of supplies for this. The ecologist also insisted that we take the most direct route, so instead of east and then north back around we're heading directly north into unfamiliar areas....I'm actually excited to go back..excited to explore the ashlands... kinda weird really.

Oh well. Tomorrow we set out so I've got... 12 hours to figure out if this is actual excitement for the journey or just anticipation and fear... hard to tell..I think.