I think you're right. We need another couple of drives before we get to the real "Parking Lot". Until then we'll still be in a ripple field... kind of the grassy area where people dump their trolleys that borders the Parking Lot

With the same measuring I used there I get the 'Rightmost' about 100 meters farther, but for the later sols it is definitely no longer possible to hit these spots.
It seems to work fine (on sol 2402) with a fixed feature at the far horizon... as for the used map above and additionally for the "little" crater at 124 degrees in this image (from ESP_012820_1780_RED.abrowse):

FWIW my latest attempt to identify Santa Maria:

Looking at Stu's image, it seems one can still dimly see ripples beneath the smooth "parking lot" surface. Maybe this is an illusion, but it suggests that the parking lot level has been superimposed on a pre-existing rippled surface. Can we infer anything about the surface formation process from this?

I agree. I make our 2403 position to be just to the SW of where you've plotted it, Stu. The roughly 5-metre crater in that direction is just visible on the far right of this hazcam view:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2403
And here's the navcam view east showing one of the last patches of ripples we'll encounter:
http://qt.exploratorium.edu/mars/opportuni...0M1.JPG?sol2403

Edit: Btw, I still prefer "tarmac" to "parking lot", since you either park or drive very slowly in a parking lot, but you move quickly across the tarmac!

Phil:

This is neat. Like many of you have been suggesting, I *think* that Santa Maria is starting to poke up as the two dark patches at the left of your stretched pan. We should know soon enough...


...but I'm just starting mourning having left the largest expanse of outcrop we've ever seen (possibly more than we'll ever see).

-Tim.

Stereo view of little crater near us on 2403, with really big crater Iazu in the background:

This is only very rough, but shows where we are on the edge of the smoother region. This is from the navcams.

Phil

And immediately after the brief smpooth area imaged by Stu, we seem encounter further ripples. This 'tarmac' edge seems to be a localised feature or outlier rather than the true tarmac edge.

You're right, Serpens: close-up of the terrain en-route to the next waypoint crater... definitely going to roll over a much flatter swathe of ground on the way to it...

As Marsophile pointed out, there seems to be an underlying ripple structure. There are also a number a craters that are seemingly of the same age in the flattened area boundary. Possibly an airburst which generated sufficient overpressure to flatten out the ripples?

Would the ripples build back up over the surface there? (How long does it take these ripples to form?)

They would build up again... but never mind. These are tiny little ripples, and those HiRISE images, very nice though they are, have had to be extremely contrast-enhanced to show anything. Latest images show this is a great place for driving.

Phil

You're right Phil, I had to boost the contrast up to "OMG!!!" to show the differences between the neighbouring terrain types. All good driving ground.

Here's the current pancam panorama and a stretched version of the more distant part of it. We can start to map out the various small craters on views like this.

Phil