The Adventure Mobile

A small celebration had been planned, or at least contemplated. My Adventure Mobile was approaching 100,000 miles which is a major milestone for any vehicle. I hadn’t really given much thought as to just what I was going to do when the big moment occurred but a picture of the odometer was definitely on the list. And of course it would have to be posted to social media, most likely Facebook. It was 2 days before Valentine’s Day 2024.

This trip was to Hamcation in Orlando, FL which is a huge ham radio fest (hamfest) that drew close to 25,000 hams for the three day weekend event. I was on my way home from and driving through Tennessee when I noticed the van was less than 150 miles from hitting the milestone. And then somewhere in Kentucky I thought to look again and the odometer read 100138 miles. I had missed it and like so many things in life there was no going back.

The van, a 2020 Ford Transit Connect was bought new on January 31, 2021. My wife and I have a son, Paul, who works for Ford and because of that we are able to buy them on the A Plan which saves us a lot of money on new purchases.

For some time I had been visualizing what was wanted in such a vehicle but the biggest issue was that it had to be long enough for me to sleep in. My previous car was a Ford Escape which was just fine as a car at the time but retirement was approaching and my sights were widening. On the nearest to us Ford dealer lot I saw a van that looked to be what I needed. A tape measure showed the distance from the back seat to the rear door was 6’6″ which was more than enough room for my 5’9″ frame. A deal was struck which was immediately followed by plans for the first road trip.

That van was going to be my bed for many nights ahead. While retirement was nearing wealth was not. The van would be a free place to sleep while traveling. I bailed from the work life the moment it looked like we could afford it. Any sound financial advisor would have told me to keep working. What they couldn’t tell me was how long I would live and be healthy. A little chart I once saw helped put things in perspective. It indicated how long the typical person lives after retiring at various ages. One thing on that chart screamed at me. It was that the older a person worked before retiring the sooner death after retirement occurred. The inverse was that the younger a person retired the longer the average lifespan. That was taken very seriously and the retirement savings plans suddenly were taken much more seriously.

I had been a ham radio enthusiast for over twenty years prior and it was something I wanted to get back into after retirement. But I didn’t just want to sit in a room with a radio, I wanted to travel and experience more of the world. There is a subset of ham radio called Parks on the Air. In it hams go out into parks and play radio. My hopes involved doing this throughout the country. Little did I know at the time how much this would influence and even dominate my life. Since then me and my Adventure Mobile have traveled in all 49 states as well as the District of Columbia. There is the Alaskan Highway which I drove from mile 0 into that state but there is no Hawaiian Highway which meant we had to fly to that one.

There are awards in Parks on the Air, often shortened to POTA, that are earned for various things. One of the most sought after one was for going to parks in every state and playing radio. Lo and behold, I was the first to ever earn that award!

So here we go. This is my first blog and in it I hope to tell stories that are mostly about those travels, ham radio, and how they intersect.

The Road to 50

There are days we wake up and know that a major milestone awaits. August 22, 2022 was one of those days. My wife Cyndi and I were on a road trip to the northeastern US states. It’s unusual that she accompany on one of my crazy road trips but for this one she did. Almost definitely it was in hopes of seeing some of the kinds of things that part of the country has to offer such as lighthouses, etc. And yes, we did do some of that and it was fun for both of us. But today was not about lighthouses, at least not to me.

A week before had left our wonderful dog Ellie at our daughter Susan’s house and took off. While Ellie was less than thrilled I couldn’t have been more excited. This trip was going to finish up a couple of goals that had begun some years before. To complete them the only thing needed was this road trip.

The first goal was the one that had been started about 10 years before. It was to have a beer that was brewed in every state capitol. This goal was very much a personal one meaning as no official rules or record keeping exists. Also, the beer just had to be brewed in the capitol city and did not have to be consumed in it. For me it was a fun little project that seemed to grow the closer I got to completing it. How many people in the world can say they have had a beer that was brewed in each of the US capitol cities? The list has to be extremely small and it is very likely that I am the only one who even cared about it. The real challenge to this was finding a beer that was actually brewed in the capitol city. But more on that later.

The second goal, and the one this blog will center on, is the Parks on the Air award for activating parks in 50 states. First, let me explain what “activating” a park means. Simply put, it is taking a ham radio station into a state or national park and making contacts with it there. To do this the station has to be portable and very much “bare bones” as compared to a home station that can be much more involved. An activator’s station almost never has such a luxury as an amplifier and is therefore limited to lower transmit power. Sometimes only 5 watts or less is used. Also, huge antenna towers don’t exist for the activator. Indeed, such limitations dramatically increase the challenge and also the fun. Exactly how such a station is set up depends on the individual and there are countless ways to get on the air for an activation.

The other side of the coin are the “hunters.” They are the ones who the activators contact via radio. The activator typically uses the POTA system’s spotting page to let the hunters know which frequency and which park is being activated. The hunters use this to know where to look with the hopes they can hear the station who is in the park and then to be able to actually make contact. None of this is guaranteed.

The combination of activating and hunting is when an activating station contacts another activating station. That is called a “park to park” contact and to successfully accomplish that multiplies the challenges for both stations.

There are a lot of awards in Parks on the Air but perhaps the most sought after one is the award for activating all states. As I began traveling this had yet to be achieved. Nobody had been to every state and activated. There had been several hunters who had gotten the award for hunting them all but not for activating. To do that required being in the state and there were a lot of people who sought to accomplish it.

Jason Johnston, whose call sign is W3AAX, is the head of Parks on the Air and it was largely his vision that got it started. I got to meet him at the huge Dayton, Ohio Hamvention hamfest in May of 2022 and it was a huge honor for me. Come to find out he is a very humble man and seems to be much less impressed with himself than others are of him. This is definitely a trait of many of my favorite people. During that 3 day event I mentioned to him how close I was to accomplishing the goal of activating 50 and that I expected to do it around August.

After actually completing it I sent him an email asking if he remembered that conversation. His response is one I just won’t delete. It reads: “I DO remember meeting you, and having the conversation on how close you were. I was in such disbelief until I reviewed the stats. Beyond well done, and thanks for being such a great steward of our program!!”

Let me say that Parks on the Air allows for a “wildcard” state if either the hunter or the activator has the District of Columbia in the log. Since I had indeed activated there it was only necessary for me to do it in 49 states to receive the award. Hawaii was the state not (yet) visited. That would about 8 months later and will be the source for stories yet to be told here.

At the beginning of this little ham radio odyssey I thought that it might be possible to be among the first 10 or so to earn the award but then the more time passed with nobody accomplishing it yet and the more states I had done, well, the idea of being the first to do it began to enter my mind. But truthfully, the expectations had become being among the first 5.

When we left our Illinois home on this trip only 7 states were needed to earn the Activated All States award and they were all in the northeast. Only one road trip was needed and waking up that morning in Massachusetts that number had been whittled down to 2, Rhode Island and Connecticut. And still nobody had earned the award. As astounding as it seemed, I was going to be the first to do it!

POTA has a Facebook group that I participate in and it is there many keep track of what is going on with regards to that little segment of ham radio. More than my share of pictures taken during my various park activations, etc., had been uploaded to that group. It’s a great resource in many ways. I could have easily posted there how close I was to accomplishing this goal. However, somewhere along the way I had become determined to be the first and the fear was that by making this information public would send someone out on a trip making them the first. It would be fair to say that I had become more than a little irrational when it came to this award.

Of course as we drove through each state we also stopped at a brewery in every state capitol with one exception. Montpelier is the capitol town of Vermont. It seemed so much more of a small town than a city and it was a very nice one. It had an exceptionally beautiful capitol building. The reason we didn’t stop into a brewery there is because there weren’t any. This was one of the four state capitol cities that didn’t have brewery. Two of the others, Pierre, South Dakota and Jackson, Mississippi both had home brewer supply stores and I was able to have a locally brewed beer there. However, Montpelier didn’t even have that. To accomplish having a beer that was brewed in that city required me finding a home brewer. With some networking I was able to do that and had a very nice beer in the house of a home brewer. We then took them out to dinner after. It was the least we could do! Unlike Parks on the Air, there was no “wildcard” with this quest.

Activating Rhode Island is kind of a lost memory for me. Maybe I will have to ask my wife to remind me what happened there. With no disrespect to that state I had my mind set on Connecticut which was going to be the final state needed.

We woke up that morning in a beautiful little seaside town south of Boston and set the GPS to the Rhode Island park of K-2881, the WWII Veterans Memorial State Park. It was raining lightly there and quickly 21 contacts were logged. That made 49 states activated and only one more to go!

Dinosaur State Park, K-1663 is located just about dead center of the state of Connecticut and was chosen to be the park activated. When Cyndi travels with me I try to find a park to activate that has something for her to do while I’m playing radio. This park offered an interpretive center for her to explore. Unfortunately we were there on a Monday and the center was closed on Mondays.

After leaving the park in Rhode Island the weather turned significantly worse. On the drive to Dinosaur we weren’t sure an activation was possible. Rain came down in torrents and at times visibility was minimal making driving dangerous. It seemed that the further we drove the worse the weather got and even the RainX on the windshield couldn’t keep it clear. The possibility of not being able to activate the park was being discussed and was a definite possibility. While I was not certain I could activate that day I was sure that we weren’t leaving the state until I had done a park!

For me to be the first person to earn this award is more than a little amazing. There are some hams who are extremely knowledgeable of the hobby. Such things as antenna theory, electronics designing, etc., etc., are far beyond me. If I were to describe my knowledge of such things I would put myself in the lower 1/3rd of all hams and that might be generous. Simply put my knowledge is on the low side. What I did well was to keep my station simple and to just keep traveling. Maybe I didn’t understand everything that was going on my system I did know that it worked well for me.

With only about 30 miles to go to the park the rain began to abate somewhat and with 10 miles to go stopped almost completely. It was suddenly looking good that today would indeed be the day!

When we finally reached Dinosaur State Park the rain had reduced to a light mist. Maybe this wasn’t ideal weather it was good enough. I immediately got busy setting up for my activation and Cyndi went looking around the park.

It has occurred to me the vast dichotomy with the history of where we were and what I was doing. This park is full of foot prints that were left by dinosaurs some 200 million years ago. Because of that it is an amazing place that takes the mind back to times that were so very different than those today. Here I was using a cell phone to spot myself on a computer based system that relied upon, among many other technologies, satellites to pass along information. What a difference a couple hundred million years makes! Say what you want about the good old days but I was happy to not have a Tyrannosaurs Rex trying to have me for lunch!

So, despite the light rain, the antenna was erected on top of my van, the radio plugged into the Lithium Ion Phosphate battery, and it was tuned to a frequency I found to be clear. It was time to grab the microphone and begin. Nerves, excitement, and even some adrenaline were all evident as I spotted myself on the POTA spotting page. I went to work. Typically I began an activation by contacting a few other activators park to park. This lets me know everything is working the way they are supposed to. And on that activation I did just that with W0AP who was in North Dakota letting me know that all was working as hoped.

To have a “legitimate activation” requires making at least 10 contacts from a park. The 10th at Dinosaur was W5LGK who lives in Georgia. Let there be no doubt that there was a celebration that happened immediately after and it continued for some time. A few who had been listening offered congratulations and, well, I couldn’t help myself by mentioning it more than a few times. At some point my wife showed up and took a few pictures of me with a microphone in hand and a huge smile on my face. I remember once re-spotting myself with “AAS” celebrating the event. Of course, “AAS” was for Activating All States. Later Julie, WT8J, who is the POTA mapping representative for Michigan and also in charge of social media sent me a screenshot of it. I was thrilled to see it and the sight continues to bring fond memories of a goal achieved.

Later while looking at the log of the 34 contacts made I saw W1AW in the log. W1AW is the huge and very famous station on the premises of the Amateur Radio Relay League in Newington, CT. It is the primary headquarters of United States ham radio. That contact was made only 8 minutes after the 10th so apparently I was still more than a little pumped up. How cool it was to have made a contact with the ARRL headquarters only minutes after earning the Activating All States award!

That evening we stopped in Hartford, CT which of course is the capitol city and had a beer that was brewed there. The following day found us in Trenton, NJ which is another capitol city that doesn’t have a brewery. Again networking enabled me to find a home brewer. This was the 50th state for that goal. Needless to say it was a good week!

The Ham Hat

Almost every ham has a “ham hat” and most of us have at least one ball cap that sports our call sign. Include me in that number. Getting that first one is a huge matter of pride. Choosing the colors of cap and lettering are big decisions in the journey of every new ham and it is something that takes more than a little thought. That cap helps tell the world that we are a licensed Amateur Radio operator and the call sign it displays is the only one like it in the world . It is as unique as the individual who wears it. We have studied for and passed FCC authorized tests to earn the right to wear it. Are we proud of that call sign? You better believe it! I fully confess to also having at least one shirt with my call sign on it and another that says POTA on it. In addition, I have a jacket that has my call sign in the colors of my local ham radio club. I wear all of it proudly.

Something unique about me is that I’m not really a fan of wearing ball caps. Yep, its definitely a quirk, one of those little things that makes me something between unique and flat our crazy. What I am a fan of are classic hats such as a Fedora from the “Sinatra era.” Now those are hats! Unfortunately, there don’t seem to be very many Fedoras with ham radio call signs on them.

Tangent Alert! Many years ago my brother Rex, sister Mindy, and my best friend Buzzie and I went on a ski trip to Aspen, Colorado. It was the Christmas / New Year’s week of December 1974. Only my sister had ever been on skis before so for the rest of us it was our first time.

One evening Rex, Buzzie, and I were walking the streets of Aspen going to dinner. A very popular movie of the time was Urban Cowboy and it featured western dress including cowboy hats and boots. Buzzie was very fond of such boots and me of hats. The three of us were walking along when a man and woman walked towards us. One of the two, I think him, wore the most amazing western hat I had ever seen. Any cowboy would have been more than proud to wear it. They walked right through us and all I saw was that incredible hat. It was truly an amazing wide brimmed beauty that must have cost a fortune! I was so close to asking about it but decided not to. Come to find out the other half of the couple, her I think,wore some equally impressive boots. I didn’t see them and am taking Buzzie’s word for this. He locked in on those boots and saw nothing else just as I had locked in on the hat.

They got past us and Rex stopped asking “Did you see who that was?” Neither Buzzie nor I saw who they were having only seen a pair of boots and a hat. He then told us it was Cher and Gregg Allman. They were a couple then and were apparently also in Aspen the same time we were. They had walked right through us and all I saw was a hat and all Buzzie saw were boots. End of tangent.

My first visit to the Huntsville Hamfest was in 2023 and as often happens before such an event I had made a list of things I hoped to find. At the top of that list was a “non-cap” ham hat. There were indeed a couple of hat vendors there and soon I found a hat that was satisfactory. It wasn’t a Fedora or close to it but at least it wasn’t a cap! It looked more like a fishing hat, one of those that are often seen with a couple of fish hooks and lures attached to it. Well, I wasn’t really interested in those kind of accoutrements on it and only my call sign N9VFR.

At the chosen vendor’s booth there was a line of other folks waiting to place their orders and yes, all of them had chosen caps. There I stood among them with the fishing style lid that was soon to be my ham hat. It was off white and navy blue lettering was decided upon. My money paid and decisions regarding thread colors explained I was told it would be 45 minutes before it was ready. Fair enough so off I went to see what else the hamfest had to offer.

At the appointed time a friend, Mike, KD9ARW, and I returned to pick up the hat. As things turned out it was just then being set up on the sewing machine. We stood watching and talked with the machine operator as we did so.

Somehow the conversation turned to unusual hats he has done. He told us about one guy who asked if his system could sew a fire hydrant on his cap. The answer was that his machine was capable of doing that so the request was made to sew a fire hydrant onto his hat. Questions about anything else he wanted on it such as his call sign were asked and the answer to that was no, only the fire hydrant.

The obvious next question was why he wanted that on his hat and the reply came that he would have to let the machine operator know what his call sign was. And the next question: “Ok, what’s your call sign?” The answer was K9PEE. He got his fire hydrant ham hat. It’s something I’ve been laughing about ever since.

Mary’s Crab Pots

There are things in life that are better than an adventure within an adventure but not very many of them. It was early July of 2022 and I was at Alaska’s Chilkat State Park, POTA # K-1642, which includes a point of land that divides the Pacific Ocean from an inlet into a smaller cove. It was a stunningly beautiful location with hazy snow capped rugged mountains as a backdrop and the calm protected sea only feet away. Occasionally a small boat would motor slowly past. Thinking back on it I realize an opportunity was missed to make a perfect screen saver or calming video. Seeing it again would definitely bring instant relaxation.

Behind me was a concrete boat ramp with a small parking area for vehicles. This is where I set up. Only a couple of boats were ever observed making use of the ramp and not very many other people seemed to come this far into the park. It was a perfect place to set up for a Parks on the Air activation and with the mountains leaving a clear way into most of the US mainland it offered an ideal opening to the south and east.

After making as many POTA contacts as possible I decided to explore. My location in Chilkat was at the beginning of a point of land that was only a few hundred yards wide and jutted out into the ocean for less than a half mile. At its beginning the spit of land was only slightly wider than the road leading to it but soon spread out to a few hundred yards.

Walking a counterclockwise route took me past the boat ramp and towards the inlet. Walking along the water was very difficult and rugged so I took one of the inland paths that seemed to lead to the shoreline. Soon I found a small rocky area and a man swimming with his child. I walked past them a short distance and sat on the rocks enjoying the mountainous scenery from a different angle. An aluminum boat pulled up.

Her name was Mary, or at least I think it was. Her boat was about 15 feet long and had the common V shaped front and some equipment on board. She first approached the guy who was swimming but saw his kid and came to me. It was obvious that I was not her first choice. He was younger and much fitter than me. She asked for help with the boat.

This brought a bit of a conundrum for me. We were total strangers and I was an awfully long way from home. I had no idea of what her intentions were and it occurred to me that maybe she wanted to abduct me or perhaps murder me and throw my body overboard. Or perhaps she planned to do unimaginable things that I didn’t want her to do. If any of those were what she wanted to do then getting on that boat would guarantee my fate. Without a doubt she was the more rugged of the two of us. She wasn’t very tall but was stoutly built and gave me the sense of being, well, rough. Definitely she was much rougher than I. Despite such concerns and because of my love of finding a new adventure I agreed to get on the boat and help her. Also, there is just something about a damsel in distress that is hard for us men to refuse. As it turned out she really did need help and I was going to survive. Spoiler alert! I did.

She had bought her boat only the day before and didn’t really know how everything worked on it. This was her maiden voyage with it and I was being asked to help her figure things out.

It came with about a dozen crab pots and a battery operated electric winch to lower and then raise the pots. Me, having lived most of my life in the Midwest state of Illinois had never seen a crab pot. Here crabs are only found in seafood restaurants. My knowledge of the working of a crab boat was exactly zero! I live a very short distance from the Mississippi River just up from St. Louis, MO. There is plenty of fishing there but none of it involves harvesting crabs. Catfish maybe, but not crabs.

Someone, I think it was the guy who had sold her the boat, had told Mary there were crabs in 30 feet of water and that they were being found in this inlet. Her boat had a depth finder on it and she pulled away from the shore using it to look for that depth of water. This was the first time I had ever seen crab pots and they looked kind of like what we used to keep some of our bait alive while fishing from a john boat back home. They were circular wire and are a couple of feet tall when stretched out. A trap door lets the crabs in and then keeps them there. They were linked together with a nylon rope that was kind of like a ski rope and a colored float that was set to the length that would allow the pots to settle on the bottom of the water. Everybody who set out crab pots used such floats and had their own unique color combination to identify their pots from those of others. Apparently these folks operated on the crab fishing honor system and only harvested crabs from their own pots.

So off we went into the inlet with her on the motor and me trying to figure out how to operate the winch. She didn’t yet know how to operate it fully so it became my project to figure it out. The thing would pull the pots up but would not let them down and it was supposed to go both ways. After a few minutes it was determined that the motor only ran one way and it was necessary to string the nylon cord differently depending on which way the operator wanted it to go.

That problem solved we went about setting the pots. My job was to drop an anchovy into each pot and then to hoist the trap overboard and run the winch lowering the pot. Each pot was supposed to get two anchovies but she only had enough for one per pot. Mary was watching the depth meter, running the motor, and steering or at least she was supposed to be doing all of that. At one point I looked away from my crab pot duties to discover some huge rocks along the shore and they were only a few feet off the port bow. (For you non nautical types that is the front left side of the boat.) She thought the boat was idling in the middle of the inlet when it was actually moving! We were very close to wiping out on those rocks!!

Finally, we were getting things figured out and developing a nice routine of baiting and dropping the crab pots overboard when we heard laughter. We both looked up to see a teen aged boy and a couple of girls in a small boat that was close to the launch pad where my van was parked. They were trying to bait some hooks but bald eagles kept trying to swoop down and take the bait out of their hands. Seeing bald eagles behaving like this might have been a common occurrence there but was something I had never seen. To me eagles are a rare and special sight and usually only happens in the month of January But Haines, AK is in the middle of eagle country. Only a few miles away is the Alaska Chilkat Bald Eagle State Preserve (POTA K-7240.) They are plentiful there. Watching those huge birds swoop down and try to steal cut bait from those laughing kids was both incredible and hilarious. Mary and I both stopped our labors and laughed along with them.

Finally we finished our crabbing duties and she pulled up to the boat ramp to drop me off. She couldn’t get quite close enough to the shore and it was necessary for me to jump off the boat with one foot in the water. It was cold! How that man and his child were swimming in it was proof again that Alaskans are much tougher than I.

I returned to the same spot the next day to again play radio and with the hopes of seeing Mary again. I was interested in hearing about how the crab pots we set out had done. Unfortunately, she was nowhere to be found and no such news of success or failure came. It would be great to see her again to hear about her new business enterprise. She didn’t seem like a very knowledgeable investor in the crabbing business but hopefully she did well with her new boat and as a a crab harvester. It was a lot of fun to help her. While assisting on a crab boat was never on my bucket list it was a fun item to tick on my list of unique experiences. Thanks Mary for a fun adventure!

Northwest Trip – Iowa

The trip to the northwest had been imagined for quite some time and fortunately for me it was delayed. The reason for the delay was Covid19 which, of course, shut down the entire country and even most of the world for well over a year. During that delay I returned to ham radio and discovered Parks on the Air. Hence the fortunate for me part. The rough outline of this adventure was made before I got back into ham radio and before I even knew what Parks on the Air was. It was also before the arrival of retirement.

Times changed, life changed, and the road called. Covid was fading, retirement had arrived, and POTA had entered my life. My first trip which was to the South was in the books and lessons had been learned with significant improvements made on how I did things. For example, the rear two rows of seats in the Adventure Mobile had been removed and were replaced with a hand built bed. It was set up to have plenty of storage which was something the previous trip had showed was needed.

A piece of luggage that was typically carried on a flight was measured and found to be 10″ high when laid on its back. That became the height of the bed above the floor of the van making the entire bottom usable for storage. Because my job involved working with pipe it was something I was familiar with. Therefore the bed was supported by pipe floor flanges top and bottom with 3/4″ pipe between. A plywood base was cut to fit a twin sized memory foam mattress and my bed was ready to go.

The rough outline of the road trip would take me out of Southwest Illinois, through Iowa and then to Nebraska before making my way northward through the Dakotas largely following the Missouri River. From there my route would include the rest of the upper tier of states that included Montana, Idaho, and Washington. Next it would take me down to Oregon and a stop to visit family in Portland and then to Eureka, California to spend time with a friend. The Bay Area would be the turnaround point after visiting our son, his wife, and our grandson there. Nevada, Utah, Colorado Wyoming, and Kansas would make up the homeward leg. Of course the capitol city was to be visited in every state with the requisite social media selfie to be taken in front of each capitol building and then a beer. That was the outline of this trip and it included plenty of flexibility to divert at will. Obviously at least one park was to be activated in every state.

On September 9, 2021 I headed out on what was to become almost a month long trip. The first state visited was Iowa and it was there that the first of many signs for the Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail was sighted. In Parks on the Air this trail is K-4572 and it is one that goes through 16 states. My home is only a few miles from where they spent the winter of 1803 – 1804 before the Spring found them beginning their journey against the stiff Missouri River current and beyond. A regret was not activating that trail in every state to the north and west. To a very large extent I followed their route almost to its end in Washington state west of Portland, OR. Their Corps of Discovery went as far as to where the Columbia river emptied into the Pacific Ocean at a site they called Camp Disappointment. Pursuing this would have included 11 states and I only activated that trail in a few of them. It would not have been difficult at all to do the rest and a fun little side project would have been the result. The handful of eastern states along that trail would have been much easier to reach than those northwest ones.

I was driving through Iowa on my way to the capitol city of Des Moines when a road sign was passed that said the American Gothic house was ahead. It seems like the sign said 18 miles. At first it didn’t quite register with me but after a couple miles of driving and thinking about that sign the car was turned around to get second look. Sure enough, the house from the famous painting was up ahead. This was totally unexpected and was something I just had to stop for and see.

You probably are familiar with the painting. It is of a man with a pitchfork standing next to a woman in front of a house that sported a unique second story gothic style window. To me it had always somehow defined farm life in America at the turn of the 20th century. One could almost hear the livestock and the dour expressions on the couple’s faces just screamed that life on that farm was very hard. The reality of it was found to be completely different from what I had imagined.

This house is not on a farm at all but is located only a few blocks off the highway in Eldon, Iowa which is a small riverside town not far from Ottumwa. There are no fields of hay so no need for a pitchfork. It is quite close to neighboring houses so nothing like a barn existed. The two people in the picture are not of a farm family at all but instead are a dentist and the sister of the artist. That picture, which looked to be such an authentic depiction of early American farm life turned out to nothing of the sort. Seeing the house and learning the truth of the painting was one of those moments in life that makes one question everything ever believed. However, I did come away with a much greater appreciation of the artist’s eye. Something about that house took his imagination to a place and he was able to capture it perfectly. A classic American painting was the result.

Not to be stuck in, well, Camp Disappointment I continued on with my own little trip of discovery. States needed to be explored, parks needed to be activated, and capitol cities needed to have at least one locally brewed beer consumed.

The Hot Air Balloon

I first met Dennis, AD9WM, at our local ham radio club meeting but it wasn’t the first time we had talked. That occurred only weeks before when I was at a park on Oahu in Hawaii and he was at his home in Jerseyville, Illinois. That meeting led to the picture at the top of this blog. It is a picture I took while descending from a hot air balloon after completing a POTA activation while in it and is of the balloon’s shadow on the top of a pavilion at Pere Marquette State Park, K-1015, in Illinois.

It’s traditional at Lewis and Clark Radio club meetings that everybody introduce themselves verbally with first name and call sign. This is how every meeting begins and this one followed suit. After the meeting Dennis approached me, it was a very short walk because he was sitting only a row back. He asked “You’re N9VFR?” It was both a question and a statement. He then mentioned working me while I was in Hawaii. Note that “working me” in ham radio jargon means he made a contact with me. Its also referred to as having a QSO. I definitely remembered that contact because during it he mentioned that he lived a short distance from me and making contact with somebody so close to home was unexpected.

It reminded me of the time I was in Alaska at a park again playing radio and another club member, Tim, N9FUE called me. Apparently the club was in the middle of a net at the time and Tim reported on it that I was on the air in Alaska. Several others soon called and I enjoyed hearing familiar Illinois voices while in Alaska. Meeting Dennis at that meeting began a friendship that I treasure. I needed a POTA buddy and now have one! (As I write this Dennis and I are planning to drive a couple of hours tomorrow to a new park in Southern Illinois and follow that up with a visit to a brewery.)

His wife has a cousin named Floyd who has a hot air balloon that he flies on occasion and is a hobbyist in that sport. At some point it clicked with Dennis about doing a Parks on the Air activation from a hot air balloon. He researched as best he could and found no evidence that such an activation had ever been done.

Everybody who activates parks loves the letters “ATNO.” They stand for All Time New One and it means a park that has never been activated before. The person activating the ATNO park is the very first to do so and its always a little more exciting and fun. The idea of an ATNO way of activating, while in a hot air balloon, was definitely enough to get Dennis’ blood pumping. Of the many thousands of parks in the Parks on the Air program every one of those parks that has been activated had someone be the first to do so. But activating a park while aloft in a hot air balloon? It had never been done. Or at least not as far as Dennis was able to determine. He decided to be the first.

The rules for an activation in Parks on the Air are simple. The radio operator and all equipment must be within or above the park. Airplane activations have been done in the past and there are parks that are in the middle of a body of water that have been activated by boat. But a hot air balloon had never been done and likely never even considered. The same rules applied to it. While aloft the balloon had to be over the park while all contacts were made.

Dennis was an engineer by trade which might have given him the perfect mindset when considering something like a hot air balloon activation. It sounds simple, go up in a balloon and turn the radio on, and talk. It definitely was not as simple as it might sound! How do you attach an antenna to a balloon? How do you mount a radio in it? Can you hear the radio’s speaker when the pilot hits the propane gas? This is just a few of the myriad questions that had to be answered before anything else happened. There would be no second chances for this so it had to be gotten right the first time. An operators manual didn’t exist for this so an engineer was needed. Fortunately Dennis was one.

He decided to invite a few of his ham radio friends to take part. These were all Parks on the Air activators and fortunately for me I was one of them. Also included were K0OMD, Bill, his wife Betty, K0KST as well as KD9LON Dan, and Mark, KD9EFO. Before telling us what was involved we were all asked to tell absolutely nobody about what was being planned. Dennis’ concern was that if word got out that what he was up to somebody might beat him to it. I’m not saying this was akin to a CIA operation but I might suggest they talk to Dennis and take a few notes!

It was decided to not use Floyd’s balloon but that of a friend of his which had a bigger gondola and was thought to want the publicity for doing something like ham radio activity while aloft. However, at the time that balloon was at the famous Albuquerque balloon festival in New Mexico and wouldn’t be back for a few days. After that the weather soured just enough so that balloon flight just wasn’t possible. There was no rush on when we actually did the activation except for Dennis wanting to be the first. This desire is something I fully understood having gone through something similar in being the first to earn the Activated All States award through POTA.

During the wait for the balloon to arrive back to the area and for the weather to improve several details were worked out. For example, the antenna was decided upon. Dennis was going to use his commercially bought PackTenna which is a thin lightweight wire antenna that has multi band capability. The plan was to dangle the antenna with a short coax cable over the side and to weigh it down with a tennis ball so that it would stay straight. That antenna is typically hoisted aloft in a tree or something similar but for this one it would hang below the gondola. It’s about 40 feet long and the coaxial cable was about 10 feet. To keep everything far enough above the ground the height of 75’ was decided upon for the gondola.

It had become obvious that the balloon was not going to be able to float free and fly along with the breeze but would have to be tethered to the ground and we needed that 75’. To accomplish this 3 long lines were brought. They were to be tied to the balloon’s gondola and to three pickup trucks which were spread out on the ground in a triangle formation. This is an example of the many details had to be thought through before the balloon even left the ground.

I got a call on Halloween night that the next day, November 1 of 2023, would be the day. We were all to show up at 8 AM at Pere Marquette State Park in Illinois. We were to set up about 100 yards from the Illinois River on a large flat open area that would work well for the balloon and crew. The temperature was quite cold and was right at 30F. The good news was that there was almost no wind blowing which made it ideal for this event. It was a bright sunny day and just perfect for doing a POTA activation from a hot air balloon!

The balloon arrived and after some finalizing plans were agreed upon it was removed from the van, laid on the ground, and rolled out. The past summer I had been to the Forest Park Balloon Glow arriving early in order to get a parking spot, even before any balloon carrying vehicles had arrived. The Balloon glow hosts dozens of balloons and I watched several of them being set up. From a hundred feet or so away I could see most of the crews do generally the same thing in setting up the balloons.

Their usual balloon crew came along on this November day but still we were asked to assist. Being an assistant on a hot air balloon crew was about to be added to my list of jobs performed!

The balloon was laid out and the gondola attached by ropes and placed on its side so when the balloon floated it would turn upright. This later allowed the hot air to be blown into it. But first a large fan was brought in and powered up to blow air into the opening. When it had inflated the balloon to a certain point the propane fire was lit and hot air was blown into the balloon opening. Soon the hot air had the desired effect and the balloon began to rise, but not too far. Several of us held onto the ropes as ballast and just enough heat was kept in it to keep it inflated but to still remain on, or near to, the ground. Keeping it there kept us “ballast people” busy because that balloon wanted to fly!

Dennis decided he would go up first, and deservedly so. The radio, an ICOM 7300 for which a hanger strap had been constructed, was attached to the gondola followed by the antenna with its tennis ball weight. Both radio and antenna were his as were the ideas for their setup. Just a quick note: In the picture above Dennis can be seen in the middle of the gondola in the tan coat and Lynn, the pilot over his right shoulder.

About 15 minutes before the launch was to take place I asked Dennis if it was OK to announce what we were doing on the Parks on the Air Facebook page thinking if people knew what we were doing they would look for us to make contact. He gave his approval so I typed the message and sent it out to whoever was watching the page. Apparently quite a few were because after we went up there were a lot of people calling who knew what we were doing.

The balloon was ready, the radio was ready, Dennis and the pilot, Lynn, were, too so the propane valves were opened sending gas to the flame which caused the balloon to slowly rise. There wasn’t very much for me to do to be helpful but I decided to find the tennis ball and gently stretch out the antenna to protect it. As the gondola left the ground I steadily walked towards and then under it and finally let the tennis ball float free from my hand. The balloon, gondola, and wire antenna were all now airborne.

Upon reaching 75 feet Dennis fired up his radio on the 40 meters band and began making the first ever Parks on the Air contacts from a hot air balloon. He was up for 10 or 15 minutes and then came down. K9DEG in Wisconsin was the first contact.

I was the next to go up and Dennis stayed aboard to demonstrate to me how everything worked. Lynn hit the gas valve which was quite loud being only about a foot behind me. Fortunately, Dennis had provided dual head phones in expectation of this. They kept most of those noise out and made it possible to hear the people calling. It was also warm. That propane fire did a great job of heating up the gondola. We rose to 75’ and I called “CQ.” The calls came quickly and it seemed in no time at all I was headed back down. The log shows that my time on the radio was about 7 minutes!

It was then that I looked to my left and saw the shadow of the balloon over the park’s pavilion. It was a photo that just had to be taken and fortunately my phone was in my pocket. Truth be told, a wiser man would have left it on the ground because there are a lot of bad things that could have happened to it. Sometimes being “wisdom challenged” works in my favor.

After me it was time for Bill and Betty which was then followed by Dan and Mark. In total the group made something over 100 contacts and Dennis’s planning worked out perfectly.

Interestingly, at a Halloween party the night before I had run into Trudy who is a friend. I used to referee basketball games with her husband but he had recently passed away. While at her late husband’s grave site she saw a man visiting his late wife’s grave. They became friends and eventually began seeing each other. Interestingly, he was also a basketball referee.

They happened to take a drive that morning and as they went past Pere Marquette State Park they spotted the balloon. Out of curiosity they pulled into the parking lot to see what was going on and just to observe things. I had been faithful to my vow of telling nobody about this event so they had no idea I would be involved in the balloon that was rising above the park. After the radio fun was had it was asked by the crew if anybody else wanted to go up. I offered them some encouragement and soon enough they were headed aloft having only planned on a drive to a park!

During the planning stage Dennis asked who we might ask to photograph / video the event. Without hesitation I offered John Nell, K9JDN, who excels at both. Suggesting him was my biggest contribution to the planning because John did a fantastic job. His YouTube page is JD Nell K9JDN ALN. I wasn’t able to copy and paste the link of his video but it is from John’s drone and includes audio of the activation. Dennis is the first activator you hear and I am the second. Betty, K0KST and Bill, K0OMD after her. John did a great job of showing the park from our vantage point with the Illinois River behind. It really is a first class video. Please take a look at it.

There was a reporter from CQ and 73 magazines there taking notes. He wasn’t sure which of those ham radio magazines would carry the story but hopefully one of them does. It would be fun to read from the perspective of a reporter.

Dennis had QSL cards printed up with the picture of the balloon crew and radio operators. I bought more than enough to send one to every contact I made plus to have some spares. Its a picture of this card that is posted at the top of this blog.

This was truly a fun memory. Thank you Dennis for conceiving this activation, your engineering work to handle all of the details, and for inviting me along. This one won’t be soon forgotten.

Northwest Trip – The Dakotas

After activating a couple of parks and seeing the American Gothic house my journey through Iowa took me to Des Moines which is, of course, the capitol city. Finding a brewery there was easy enough and a flight of beers was enjoyed. Having a beer that was brewed in that state capitol was thus ticked off the list.

The original plan was after Iowa to head north into South Dakota which would be followed by North Dakota and then go west towards the Pacific Ocean and then to catch Nebraska on the way back home. However, taking a closer look at the map brought the decision to cross the Missouri River into Nebraska to visit that state earlier rather than later.

One of the interesting things about this trip was how many parks I activated that had never been done before. Between Iowa and then back home it seems that most of the ones I activated were ATNOs (All Time New Ones which is a park that no POTA activator had ever done.) A couple of them had only a few before me and most of these still have had very little activity so maybe a second trip to them is in order!

Update: So I did a quick little stats check. On this trip I activated 29 parks and of those 9 were first time ones. Looking back at it the total number of parks seems lower than I expected it to be. There were a LOT of parks not visited that were bypassed so maybe another trip should indeed be planned. Also, all of the never before activated parks were all done in Iowa, North and South Dakota, and Montana. Without a doubt I should have tried harder to find some in the other states that were visited. It is easy to see why so many Parks on the Air hunters (who are the people who call us activators) want those states for their worked all states POTA awards. North Dakota in particular is sought after for this.

From Lincoln, Nebraska I played radio at a few parks, visited a brewery, and then headed up the Missouri River up to Spirit Mound Historic Prairie State Park in South Dakota which isn’t all that far from Sioux Falls. This was an earthen mound of about 75’ in height that was located in the middle of a grassy prairie. I wasn’t sure whether it was a natural mound or one that was built by native Americans. The United States used to be absolutely full of hand built Indian mounds. Few remain. One of them is located near not very far from my home and is called Cahokia Mounds. It’s a fascinating state historic site in Illinois. These mounds are what remain of a native American civilization that was located close to the Mississippi River just east of St. Louis, MO. Its a very significant site for archaeological studies.

One thing that I experienced at Spirit Mound was, well, a spirituality to the place. Whether it was simply the name causing my own psychosomatic mechanisms to kick in causing me to feel this or the fact that it was indeed correctly named I can’t really say. All I know is that I felt something there that is difficult to describe. Later, after returning home, I did a little bit of research and learned that Lewis and Clark had also visited the site. This was surprising because it isn’t all that close to the Missouri river and a rough estimate would be 50 miles between the mound and the river (or at least where the river is today). There had to have been a very good reason for them to make that trek. The mound itself isn’t all that remarkable to see and is just kind of a big bump in a very flat landscape. Thinking of it now, wouldn’t it be interesting if ol’ Meriwether, William, and I had the exact same experience of spirituality while there?! Apparently the spirits living among that mound didn’t have anything against Parks on the Air or the guy who was operating the microphone because I left with a log full of many hunters who were happy I was on that ground.

With this park under my belt another state had been logged as “activated” I was off to Pierre which is, of course, the capitol city. In this case “town” would be more appropriate. Pierre is a town of just over 14,000 residents making it the second smallest capitol in the country being second only to Montpelier, Vermont. One thing I quickly learned about Pierre is that I had been pronouncing the name incorrectly all of my life. While there I uttered the word “Pierre” the way I always had heard and done. The way it would be in France with 2 syllables saying “pee-air” with the accent on the second syllable. I was quickly corrected. Locals say “peer” as in what one’s jury is made up of or a boat is tied up to. Only one syllable and not two. This has been mentioned to a number of folks and they seem as surprised as I was. The only people who seem to be aware of it are present or former locals. Even national television newscasts guilty of mispronouncing it. This makes me wonder how a state capitol city, even one like Pierre that is a smaller town, can be pronounced incorrectly by the vast majority of people in the country.

My purpose for visiting Pierre, of course, was to have a beer that was brewed there. However, it is one of only a few capitols that don’t have a brewery. Therefore, having that beer wasn’t as simple as walking into a brewery, sitting down, and making an order. This actually made it more fun.

I had planned to visit here a couple of years earlier but the Covid19 pandemic closed everything down thus delaying the trip. But before the world shut down I found there is a home brewer’s supply store there. Such stores sell to people who, like me, brew their own beer. Hobbies are what make life more fun and home brewing is another one of mine. That is, of course, in addition to playing radio in parks throughout the country (and beyond) and having beers that were brewed in state capitol cities.

From Prohibition stories of decades ago we Americans know all about how moonshiners distilled their “bathtub gin” at home. This is something that was going on long before that little “social experiment.” Not nearly as many people know that beer had also been brewed at homes for countless generations. In fact, there is a lot of evidence to show that the production of beer was a significant reason for why both civilization and agriculture came into existence. One reason for this is that, well, people tended to like the alcohol and maybe that was reason enough. But also in the many centuries before people knew it was necessary to kill bacteria in drinking water the fact that brewing and distilling required boiling the water meant those beverages were safer to consume than water. Boiling it killed all of the bacteria that was in the water. The result is that people who drank beer and distilled products tended to not get sick.

So while my trip to Pierre was delayed for a couple of years it finally happened in September of 2021. My first stop in town was to the Strubel Brewing Company which is the home brewer supply business. By the way Strubel is spelled with an umlaut over the U. I had been in contact via email and they knew when to expect me. I found the store to be located in a very cool looking multi story former hotel that had been converted into shops. It was a classic old brick building that had plenty of old time details built in. Cool place. A picture of the building graces the top of this section of the blog.

This shop was quite small and as well as supplies for home brewers they also had a dispensing system that featured a few beer taps. There was a customer ahead of me in the store who was getting a couple of half gallon growlers filled by Tom, the proprietor. As I stood in line waiting for my turn I heard Tom mention that they had been out of town and hadn’t had time to brew anything and the tap he was pouring from was all the beer they had available at the time. I wondered if Tom and his wife had returned from vacation just for me!

While filling the man’s second growler the tap made that distinctive noise that happens when it blows out CO2 instead of beer. The keg had blown, it was empty! I had driven all the way to Pierre, South Dakota to have a beer that was brewed there and the only beer available was gone!!

Thoughts of doom immediately coursed through my mind. It’s not like one can walk into a local liquor store and get a beer from the capitol city of South Dakota. They just aren’t available. Anywhere. Nowhere! Except here and the only keg that had any of it had blown right in front of my eyes! Suddenly the noise of the CO2 coming out of that keg wasn’t just annoying, it was as if the keg was laughing at me, taunting me. I could almost picture it with its thumbs in its ears wagging its little fingers at me!

With eyes as wide as saucers I looked at the tap system and saw a little foam that had not yet gone down the drain and was seriously thinking about scooping some of it up for a swallow.. It was, at least, a glimmer of hope. A calculation was underway about just how much foam there was and would licking the bottom of the drain catch be enough to satisfy my crazy little capitol city beer goal while also keeping my dignity. About that time Tom looked at me and asked “Are you Dave?” Upon hearing that I was he reached into a small refrigerator and pulled out a 12 ounce bottle of beer he had set aside for me. I was, and remain, very appreciative of him for taking care of me. The beer he had brewed was a Pale Ale which we enjoyed together. It was quite tasty. As well as being delicious it allowed me to maintain some level of self respect that would have surely been lost had I resorted to licking the drain. It quickly became the best Pale Ale I had ever consumed.

In this silly little beer quest of mine my favorite moments were those such as this one. Of the four U.S. state capitol cities that don’t have breweries Pierre is one of them. Those cities were all much more of a challenge to accomplish and also brought the benefit of dealing directly with the people who produced the beer instead of a server at a production brewery. The challenge made things more fun and the personal side of it was a huge bonus. Mission accomplished! Thanks Tom!!

Pierre sits alongside the Missouri River which again kept Lewis and Clark in my mind because that was the first river they navigated during their journey. I did manage to play some radio near that river giving me an activation of their National Historic Trail in the state of South Dakota.

After leaving Pierre I followed the Missouri River to North Dakota. It is one of the most sought after states for those trying for their Parks on the Air “Worked All States.” Along with Maine it is typically the most rarely on the air making it difficult to log and therefore the most sought after of the 48 contiguous states. Very few of the parks there had ever become available on the air so while there I made sure to help the hunters out and log as many of them as possible. In one of my last activations there I made it a point to call only for those who needed ND for their WAS award and managed to log something over 300 hunters from a handful of parks including what I thought sounded like a fun one.

During my planning for this trip I had noticed that Lawrence Welk’s Boyhood Home is a POTA entity that had not yet been activated. This little tidbit of information immediately piqued my quirky nature as well as my infatuation with doing ATNOs. Lawrence Welk was, of course, the band leader on the long running TV show named after him and while growing up I could not begin to count how many of his shows I had watched. His Germanic accent still resonates in my conscious mind with his musical count “A one uh and a two uh.” The bubbles floating up and the blonde haired Champagne Lady, Norma Zimmer, all come quickly to mind.

Actually, the show and the music on it were all pretty good. The band was top notch and Lawrence himself was quite engaging. It was the music of the day for a generation before mine, the one that endured the Great Depression and the horrors of both World Wars and it was the music that my parents listened to. Of course, that all changed with the advent of guitars, amplifiers, and shaggy haired musicians.

Somehow the idea of visiting Welk’s boyhood home in North Dakota appealed to me. It certainly wasn’t “fandom” but again it just seemed silly and quirky. So I drove past the small town of Strasburg to his former home.

This property that wasn’t very far north of the border with South Dakota and was a large open fielded farm with out buildings and a modest white wooden frame home. I found myself to be alone. This was a North Dakota historical site and there seemed to be nobody there to watch the property. During the hour or more it took me to set up my radio system, to make and log calls, and then to take everything back down and stow it I was never approached. Again, this radio thing is something that had never happened before at this location. Surely my activities were unique enough to elicit some interest from anyone who might have been there. Maybe it would be a good guess to assume that Lawrence Welk fans aren’t the thieving or vandalizing type and there was no need for security.

The thought definitely went through my mind to check the front door but seeing no other cars around that thought was allowed to pass. It’s possible there were video cameras. Were there pictures of toddler Lawrence on the walls? Maybe of him playing some child sized instruments? Well, my quirky nature only goes so far and seeing baby Lawrence Welk pictures just didn’t seem all that interesting so after logging close to 100 contacts I found myself setting the GPS for my next location and heading down the gravel road towards it. I’m proud to say I am the only one on my block to have visited Lawrence Welk’s boyhood home, or maybe just the only one who will admit to it.

It was on to Bismarck which is the capitol city of North Dakota. If I were to be asked where the best beer I had on this trip was found my answer would be in this town. The brewery I stopped into was Gideon Brewing and it was a new one. This visit was while Covid19 was still going on and many breweries struggled to survive the horrible business conditions that period brought. That this new one had survived was an impressive feat. Many of their beers were small batch which means they brewed a lot of different beers and had to brew almost constantly.

The beer culture for those who prefer craft beer had become full of what are called beer “tickers.” Those are people who “tick” off a particular beer on apps that keep track of what they have had and of how many. Every unique beer, and sometimes different vintages of the same beer can be ticked. The goal for many is to tick as many unique beers as possible. Beers are scored by the tickers and those scores are tallied by the apps with the theory that better beers will score higher. This is not a sure thing due to many factors. Often, one of the “cool breweries” will release a very average beer but because of who the brewery is it scores higher. Also, those who upload their scores are almost never trained experts at judging the quality of a beer. So while not a perfect system many people find it to be a lot of fun. It is one strategy that helps a small batch brewer like Gideon stay afloat. Keeping those “tick” thirsty customers walking in is definitely good for business. The high quality of their products that I tried is definitely an advantage.

With my goals met in a few more states it was time to continue my trip to the west. Montana was next and then on to Idaho. Oh, my Idaho. Now that is a story. I’ll get busy writing it.

Off to Idaho

I stayed over night in the north western Montana city of Missoula and found it to be an absolutely beautiful town! It sits only a couple of dozen miles from the Idaho border and is at the convergence of no fewer than 5 mountain ranges. It has to be an outdoors lover’s heaven. It was just not possible to be outside and not see lush, tree covered mountains in every direction. Seeing someone looking like Davy Crockett, wearing buckskin and moccasins while carrying a load of beaver pelts, would not have seemed out of place at all. Missoula has a shallow river that flows through it and I am told the trout fishing and kayaking are both great. There are trails to hike, bike, or ride, etc., etc. Not only that but there are a couple of breweries there, too!

It is a city that must be very different today from what it had been a century and a half ago when it earned the name Hellsgate. That was was a shortened version of Gates of Hell which it was previously referred as. Apparently traveling to the west through there was to enter an area that offered numerous extreme dangers. On this trip I might have invented a new one.

And speaking of visiting, is it even necessary to mention who the first US citizens to step foot in Missoula were? Yep, it was them, Lewis and Clark. They stopped there on their way to the west and then again while heading back east after finding the Pacific Ocean.

With the intent of staying in Missoula for only one night I found a hotel that just happened to be right next to the local Ford dealership. Both of these turned out to be businesses I became quite familiar with and, as far as that one night stay, well, things don’t always go according to plan. I suppose that in every road trip a little rain must fall. On this one the entrance into Idaho turned into a deluge making me think there was some truth to Missoula’s previous name.

Although the purpose of this journey was to play radio with Parks on the Air parks in every state, in this case Idaho, as well as to have a beer brewed in every capital city, this particular day was going to involve hiking some mountain trails. Doing that is something that is not easily accomplished from my Illinois town which sits on flat Mississippi river bottom land. Also, I had been spending an awful lot of time in my van and getting some outdoor exercise seemed like a good idea.

Being a solo traveler brought concerns about safety and the trail to a hot springs seemed to offer the most potential of other people being present. So, making my way to that trail was the plan. Also, I had never been to a hot springs and took my swim suit.

One thing I no longer take for granted is being a member of the species that sits atop the food chain. That being said there are occasions when the food chain order is not written in stone and this had the potential of being one of them. There were creatures there that just wouldn’t care at all about the status of my species knowing only that they were hungry.

Having read about Lewis and Clark’s journey one thing that stood out to me was their encounters with grizzly bears. They discovered that shooting a grizzly in the head with a hand gun would not kill it. The bear’s skull was just too thick for the bullet to do any real damage. So, not only was the bear hungry it was then also angry. A hangry grizzly bear was something I wanted nothing to do with!

In addition to those bears, there were other creatures I had no desire to encounter. From mountain lions to wolves to coyotes to, well, I didn’t really need any others but was certain they were all in those mountains. There were definitely plenty of animals in that region who could happily take away my crown of the king of the food chain. No thank you!

So, after enjoying the hotel’s complimentary coffee and topping off the gas tank to the Adventure Mobile it was time to set off into Idaho. Almost immediately the terrain went from mostly flat to extremely mountainous as I entered the Bitteroot Mountains. The road was a good one even as it winded its way through the rugged terrain. Seemingly within minutes cell phone coverage was lost. This was remote territory with few homes anywhere around and even fewer businesses.

It occurs to me now how incredibly difficult it would have been for Lewis, Clark, and their expedition members to traverse this land. They were hauling thousands of pounds of equipment through these incredibly rugged mountains. This included the boats they would later use to float any rivers they hoped to find. And keep in mind those boats were not made of lightweight aluminum but of very heavy wood.

It was 45 minutes or so after leaving Montana that the “low tire pressure” warning light came on in my van and then almost immediately that horrible feeling one gets upon realizing a tire is flat. Fortunately it occurred where a wide shoulder on the highway was available. So I pulled off onto that shoulder which was actually a lookout for a scenic view. Mumbling, grumbling, and generally unhappy with this turn of events, as one tends to be in such a situation, I quickly accepted the fact the tire had to be changed. This wasn’t the first flat tire this van had experienced so having done it before I knew how to change the tire.

That morning I was dressed for comfort and not for changing a tire. A light sleeveless tee shirt, workout shorts, and flip flops were the extent of my attire. Like I said, it was for driving comfort and not for working on a car.

It’s a memory, seared in my mind. That of hitting the button that was supposed to unlock all of the doors including the lift gate of the van and that “click” still echoes. The problem was that the button that was clicked was not the one to unlock the doors but rather to lock them. So, while wearing that very comfortable attire I stepped out of the van closing the driver’s door. A quick walk around to the back was followed by a grab of the handle to open the back door which was immediately followed by shock and the awareness that I was locked out of the van in the middle of nowhere Idaho.

Looking back on the situation its obvious what I should have done. Throughout the day there were a few cars that stopped to offer assistance. What should have happened was to ask them to contact the state police for their help. Police officers are often asked to unlock car doors and without a doubt they would have come to my assistance. Unfortunately, that simple solution never even entered my mind. Instead, for some reason I thought that my wife back in Illinois could contact Ford and they could unlock the van through their satellite system.

There were at least a couple of problems with this plan. The first was I couldn’t remember my wife’s phone number. I never actually use her number but always just hit the memory button on my phone to call her. So the number I was giving out was one number off! Plus the fact that any celluar service was a half hour drive away so I wasn’t even aware of giving out the incorrect phone number. By the time the person I gave it to became aware of my mistake they were long gone. Next, I’m not even sure Ford has such a service and, if they, do it’s not one we pay for.

Also, if you’re wondering why I didn’t just call home myself? Well, first, the phone was locked inside the van and second, even if it was in my hand there was no cell service for many miles around. Someone has mentioned I should carry a tool to break a window in such a situation. If I had such a tool it would have been inside the van and I would have had to break a window to access the tool which would be used to break a window.

Eventually I decided upon a plan of action. It included finding a large rock use it to break one of the van windows. A quick search and a big rock that had something like a pointed end was found. Surely this would quickly allow access to the keys that were inside! It always looks so easy when Hollywood actors do it.

Well, not so much for me. Some firm, quick bangs on the front passenger side window resulted in nothing but impact mars on the window. More and harder attempts brought only additional mars but not the broken window that was hoped for. Soon I was hitting that window with all of my strength and it still would not break. The only effect was many more of those marks left by the rock and the total physical exhaustion of my arms.

At this point exhaustion wasn’t the only thing being felt. I was also completely frustrated and, since by now the sun was dropping below the mountains, fear was beginning to set in of being stuck out there in the dark all night.

Finally an older Toyota stopped. A young man got out leaving his wife and children inside the small car. Being informed of my predicament he said he had a roadside ministry and offered to help. Personally, I thought he was drunk but he seemed like an angel to me. At that point I was not about to refuse any kind of ministry he had to offer.

He let me know that I should have used the rock on the little side vent glass that is right in front of the window I had been banging away at (that was by now completely marred). So he took the rock and threw it at the little triangle shaped piece of glass. Except he missed and the only result was a gouge in the plastic of the side view mirror. However his next throw was better aimed and went through the window bringing the knowledge that I was not going to die along the side of this road. That rock also knocked the rear view off and added a couple more scars to the interior of the van but that was just fine with me at the moment.

We promptly set to changing the tire with me using my flip flop covered feet to loosen the lug nuts. This was quickly accomplished and with many “thank yous” offered, we went our separate ways. For me it was back to that hotel that sat next to the Ford dealership where the next couple of days were spent.

Driving back to the place where my day began I was watching my phone looking for a bar or two to appear and when finally some popped up I called my wife. It was then that I found the phone number I had given out was incorrect. She had received no calls and had no idea there was even a problem.

Upon returning to Missoula the first thing I wanted to find was some duct tape to cover the hole that used to be glass. Parking at a hotel overnight with a piece of glass missing which would allow for easy access into my van seemed like something I wanted to avoid. A convenience store sold the tape, albeit a small roll. It was amazing just how much duct tape even a small window required! Not only that but in the days to follow even more tape had to be applied as air kept finding a way between the adhesive and the body of my van.

So, the next morning, only minutes after the Ford dealership’s opening, I was parked in the their lot and then inside talking with a lady with the service department. Soon they had my van inside and determined that a new tire was needed, a verdict that came as no surprise. And since there were 30k miles on the odometer a whole new set of tires was recommended over having one new tire among the other three.

After that was the task of getting both the vent window and the front passenger side window replaced. The latter was so marred that despite not being broken it needed to be replaced. I could barely see out of it! My wife had called our insurance agent who let us know that we would be refunded the costs so it was off to one of the nationwide auto glass replacement companies to get things taken care of.

Apparently those little vent windows rarely need to be replaced because while there I received the news that it would be a week before one could be delivered to Missoula. Another call back home was made. After several calls of her own my wife was able to make a reservation at one of that company’s sites near Oakland, CA which is near our son and his wife reside and where I planned to be in about a week. This gave me the opportunity to continue my journeys so it was back to Idaho, and then Washington and Oregon before making my way to California. One thing I got accomplished was to find a body shop that put the rear view mirror back in its place at the cost of $20 and a dozen donuts. A good deal if I there ever was one!

One casualty of locking myself out of the van was the planned for trip to the Idaho capitol city of Boise. Of course I had hoped to have a beer from a local brewery there. That drive through the mountains would have provided countless beautiful views. To date it remains one of three capitol cities I have not yet visited with Oklahoma City and Juneau, Alaska being the other two. Some day I will get to Oklahoma City however getting to Juneau will be more of a challenge. Not only is it a LONG distance from my home but it sits on a big island and driving to it is just not possible. Either an airplane flight or a boat ride will be required. Boise is slightly more possible than Juneau but is still a very long way from home and southern Idaho is someplace I just don’t travel to. I have had beers that were brewed in all three of those cities and actually being there was never one of my requirements for the personal goal of having a beer that was brewed in every US capitol city.

My mindset after this little event was to get out of Idaho as quickly as possible but not making that drive through Idaho is one I regret. Hopefully someday I do get back there to complete the experience.