We arrived here on Wednesday, a day sooner than the normal schedule would have us, because the trail from Goose Lake was closed.
It was a relief to know we would be staying without hitting the trail first thing again in the morning. We could rest. Michelle’s
horse appreciated that, too.
I got the camp set up, like always, except that it was later in the day. I worked in a steady rain. Michelle had
ridden through light rain earlier, but she was equipped with rain gear. I didn’t bring anything for rain. I was miserable
and not fun to be around. Michelle earned her wings by not strangling me in self-defense.
My antenna wasn’t loading up on 40 meters like it did, so I tried adjusting the length of its dipole. It was resonating below
7 MHz, so I tried shortening it. Rather than cutting, I just folded the elements back on themselves. I spent a *lot* of
time with this, bringing the antenna down and putting it back up again - at least eight times! Even shortening by 2 feet on
each leg did nothing! At first, I wondered if the wet trees were acting like capacitors on HF. Then I wondered if the ladder
line was somehow undoing what I was trying to do with the flat top. I finally gave up and just relied on my travel tuner.
It turned out that it worked fine that way. I didn’t need to spend all that time fighting with the antenna and getting soaking wet.
Right after giving up on the antenna pruning, and before testing it with a tuner, Michelle and I decided to unhook the truck
and drive to Kalkaska. There, we found a Tractor Supply and I got a good rain suit, new jeans, and rubber boots. What a difference
that made!
Before leaving, though, I narrowly missed a catastrophe while unhooking the trailer. As I began to pull away, I decided to stop and double check
things. I found the gooseneck for the trailer snugged right up tight against the tailgate of the truck! If I hadn’t stopped,
I would have broken the tailgate right off! I found out later that a lot of the riders have done this. Some, more than once!
We got back from Kalkaska just in time for me to take a shower and change into dry clothes before meeting up with the others
for dinner at G’s Pizzeria! G's is a regular part of the trail ride, we were told. The menu was great and so was the service!
(I had never seen a plate of nachos that huge!)
On Thursday, I finally got on the air from Pickerel Lake! The antenna worked fine! By this time, I had given up on
trying to log a thousand QSOs. I just wanted to talk on the radio. So, it’s fitting that I happened to meet VE3FXA: Don, in
Stratford, ON. We rambled on for over an hour about everything that came to mind. That was my only QSO for the day, but it
was a good one!