As July comes to a close, we’re starting to see the calendar ramp up for the back to school season in our house. That means that my phone is always covered in new things being added to the calendar. It gives a sense of pressure. There’s almost a mania to the closing out of summer. There’s a mad dash to do all of the things we love to do before school activities eat up all of the time that we had. At least that’s how it feels around our house. Due to some magic of the calendar for this year, school is starting extra early. So time to get out and into the parks will be hard to come by soon. So this weekend was one to take advantage of for sure.
On Saturday, my wife and the dog wanted to go to the park for a nice, long walk. The air quality combined with some kind of summer head cold has meant shorter walks for the puppy and less time outside for all of us. With a beautiful Saturday in store (after the Friday night thunderstorms) we packed up our stuff and headed out to Cuyahoga Valley National Park.
I situated myself at The Ledges while the dog got her chance to tackle some very muddy trails. For my part, the bands were weird. I couldn’t quite get my head around it. Even on FT8, stations faded in and out and I couldn’t quite piece together what was going on. It seems I wasn’t alone in that assessment.
When I hit 10 FT8 contacts, I grabbed my paddles and went to work on CW. It was slow going, but I got 5 contacts. That’s a new high score during an activation (for me)! I even got a park to park from within K-0020 with AI8AI. They were up on the north end of the park while I was on the south. CVNP is a big place. I sometimes forget that.
After my 5th CW QSO I checked the time and we needed to get moving to make dinner. It was a good activation and a lot of fun.
Here’s what it looked like on the QSOMap:
When we got up on Sunday, they day looked even more promising from a weather perspective. But we were fooled. Totally and completely. Not that it matters.
We grabbed the bikes and cycled out to The Octogon at CVNP and I grabbed my favorite table while my wife read her book. I got 13 FT8 contacts in short order. And I was banging away on CW on 20m. I got 3 contacts back to back. It was great!
And then…sprinkles.
What? That wasn’t in the forecast. Where we were sitting, we had almost no cellular connection, so we couldn’t get the weather radar. I had just gotten the rain cover on my panniers when it really started. It’s about 11 miles or so from where we were to home and it poured the entire way. In fact, it felt like hail at one point.
But…
Just as we got into the garage, the skies parted. The sun came out. The rain vanished. Birds began to sing. It was like a cartoon made real. Standing in the garage and soaked to the bone, we were not amused.
The activation happened. I was really hoping to spend more time on CW, but that wasn’t to be. There’s always next time!
Here’s what it looked like on the QSOMap:
I’m about 125 contacts away from my kilo at K-0020. There might be some mid-week activations if the opportunity arises. Hope to get you in the log!
