Good evening/morning!  While the rest of the group is sleeping, Elliott, Emily and myself are on a vacuum-filtering marathon in the soils lab.  It’s about 1:30, morale is high, and we hope to be done by breakfast later this morning.  Late nights in the lab are special time for all those involved and gives us an opportunity to see another face of this place and of the people we are here with.  Already tonight we have seen the moon for the first time this month (it’s been up, but we’re normally sleeping), discovered some long lost songs in my itunes, been eaten alive by mosquitoes while getting spring water, and witnessed a beautiful “sunset” that painted the northern sky a beautiful pink champagne color.

You may ask: why would anyone pull an all-nighter filtering?  Well, due to the slight detour on our return trip from the tundra, we lost a day of lab time.  It has recently hit home with everyone that we will be leaving very soon, and an urgency regarding lab analyses has placed us all firmly in what can be called “hyper mode”.  I expect to finish all my soil extracts tonight, sleep for a few hours, eat breakfast, sleep until lunch, and go sampling again.  The lake team has a similar plan, but rather than field work they will be on the scopes examining their catch.