This year Robert had other
things to do, so Tina and I returned to Alpine County. This
picture is of a traditional stop for lunch ,"Ham's
Station". They make a mean hamburger. We went back to the
same site we had used in 1992. It hadn't changed much. The snow
melt had arranged the tent pad, which we had to widen since we
now had an 11 by 14 foot tent.
We drove up Thursday so we had plenty of time to set things up; the pace was a lot more leisurely.
When you travel with a young lady, you
have to lug around a few extra things. The weather was great and
the view as awesome as ever. The solitude is really something up
here. In fact, it is almost eerie for a city dweller, it's very
easy to get a case of the heebie jeebie's at night when you hear
a twig snap a mile away. The closest town is well over 20 miles
away via a very twisty road.
By Friday afternoon we were all set up and bored, so we drove
into Minden NV to kill some time, returned about 9PM and sacked
out. About 2AM or so I woke up with a jolt. I wasn't sure why at
first, but as I lay there listening I could hear something moving
along the side of the tent. Then there was the sound of something
hoofed running away. I decided to take a nature break as long as
I was awake.
That morning I woke up at day break and went out to make
coffee. I noticed in the soft dirt in front of the tent very
large cat tracks. They went around the tent and turned to running
tracks blended with that of a small mule deer where they took off
up hill. We had all the food in the tent, so I was glad that
Bambi had wandered by to distract the big pussy cat.
Tina
operated the whole contest by herself this time, I did the
cooking (if you can call it that), computer logging and kept
things running. One thing about a mountain top is you can expect
wind to try and blow you off the hill.
Tina set the all time record for the
most contacts in Alpine county in spite of the fact that we
broke down early due to smoke on the horizon. In sage brush
country, fire travels very fast and we had no desire to become
baked hams.
KM6OH - Kim
If you are interested in joining our expedition in future
years, drop me a note. You do not have to be a licensed ham to
join in and operate.
Please email me with any comments at kim@knjcomputers.com
Oh well so much for CQP ..... back to CQP
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