No more jokes. It's just cold.

If I could only see the distant mountains to assert that with more snow they look even more picturesque. Sigh.

It's rare for me to update two days in a row, or maybe this is still the same day? It's two days to me.

Anyway, the point of this is to show why I can't be taking data. I love snow, but I would prefer not to have it when I'm trying to get data for my research project.

The dome on the left is the silver one seen here and here (fox pictures!).

On being really chilly in Chile...

After making my way back to Chile, La Serena was overcast and cold on Tuesday. Wednesday was a pleasant, sunny day. It was glorious and gave me much hope for the observing run. That was until we saw there was snow on the mountain and heard that some of the domes were frozen shut.

First, we see the sunny streets of La Serena. I spent Wednesday walking around this area and seeing Chilean pride for their team having won their first match in the World Cup. I also saw a young man with a rather bloody face walk by followed by his friends. They were in close pursuit by another group of young men. This is the only violence I've ever seen in La Serena.

Now, I'm on the mountain. A lot of the surrounding mountains had snow on them, but Cerro Tololo is not one of the highest peaks, so there was hope that it wouldn't have accumulated too much. You can see some snow in the background of this requisite fox photograph. The shaded areas have several inches of snow.

Apparently there isn't enough snow on the mountain because we had to close the dome after the humidity shot up and the temperature plummeted. We only had about two and a half hours of observable sky, and that wasn't even quality.

To finish things off, here is a picture of the surrounding mountains with bits of snow. The Andes were picturesque, as always. With just a little more snow, I feel like they could make a nice new logo for Andes Mints.