En route to Quito

Colton, Susan, and I (Rob) are currently waiting for our connecting flight from Houston to Quito, Ecuador. We're planning to meet Anne once we arrive and relax for the night. Tomorrow, we have to do local shopping for various tools and components we're unable to bring from the states. Tuesday morning we'll load up a big truck with all the equipment from PASSCAL and drive west to a setup a field depo and hopefully we'll get out and install a station as a team. Usually, the first install of a deployment is a big group install with everyone working together on one sight; it makes for slow work, but its good to make sure everyone knows what the station design is before we separate into smaller teams. However, since we're short on time, we may skip the team install and just split up to get two stations done Tuesday. Anyways, these last minute logistical details will be hammered out once we arrive.

We've got some good news regarding international collaboration. Teams from the US, UK, France, and Ecuador will all be down there at the same time and we'll be working together to share resources and prepare the ideal array geometry.

I'm looking forward to some field photos once we get the stations in the ground. Maybe some food photos too, once we get some local cuisine. Right now my mind is just racing with thoughts of "did we bring everything? What will conditions be like on the ground? What will the food situation be like? How often will we be camping? etc..."