Thursday, July 28, 2011

Marquette - Mio

While entering Marquette I spoke on the local repeater with a local guy talking me into going to Presque Isle Parc just north of Marquette. I didn`t make it over there untill the day after .. Cycling trough town next to the university I noticed the rather big beam from Peter K8PT. I got to see the shack and slept in the garage where no-one has slept before hahi. Had a nice breakfast and some leftovers of the Thai food the day before and got to meet his two daughters an grandchildren, vy nice.
The next day I cycled into town and headed for the Presque Isle Parc which is vy nice and should have been nice to sleep in but it was forbidden  .. kind of ..
I cleaned the chain from the bicycle next to a bicycle store and took the grease of and made it smotth again. Since I still had a wind in the back I could make some distance and headed out for Harvey and Munising. I cycled next to some very nice and pitoresque beaches, where many people swom in the rather warm water and sunbathed a bit. Temps were about 20-25 degrs.
In Munising one could catch a boat to go out in Lake Superior and visit the Pictured Rocks.
I saw the pictures already and headed out to eat a Pastie in a local store, great food and had actually two of them. I cycled on and the slooping hills near Seney where kind of hard but the wind blew me over it.
I stopped at the local gasstation and took in some suplies. They recommended me going to the baseball field over there where I set up camp and .. a elevated GP for 20 meter at 3 meters high. There was electricity to charge up the smartphone and batteries but no water. I washed myself with a waterhose I found next to a motel ;-).   In the eveneing and morning I worked VA7IR, of couse ... , N4USA Dave, W4UZH Tom, ZL2JBR, VE2HIT Gregg in Quebecq, KC0VFO Terry in Denver, W4JNC Richard in North Carolina and KR0E Don in Boulder all with good signals report, great antenna isn`t it ..
I hope I`ll meet Gregg again in eyeball contact once I got into Quebecq and have a coffee or more as he said on the radio, looking out towards it and stopped drinking coffee already to make some space there ;-)
I found a new app for the Android to find repeaters in the neighbourhood. It works very good and is called RFinder. It plots the repeaters also on the google map so you can see where they actually are. Also the distance they can cover and all info is displayed very quick. Great app and thank you W2CYK !
Tuesday 26 juli I cycled to Trout lake and swum in it, VERY hot water and great beaches. I ended up in the evening in St. Ignace near the Mackinac Bridge in between the upper and Lowe Peninsula of Michigan. I wanted to sleep in on a peninsula but it was full of flies and the campsite was very expensive over there. A family let me sleep on the garden and provided me with food in the evening, looking for there names but can`t find it soon, I`ll have to digg deeperin the bag.
I was driven over the bridge the day after by the company that takes care for the toll=system and the maintanance of the VERY big bridge ( bigger than Golden Gate ) and it costed me 2 dollars .. wauw ..
I cycled on south to Atlanta ( Michigan ) and wanted to pitch up the tent near a lake - Lockwood Lake but it was private. I saw a lady gathering garbage next to the road and asked her where there was a good spot to camp and she proposed me to pitch up tent on here property. I got some pasta and butternut cookies in the morning and arrived now in Mio where a McDonalds should be very close to me right now - thx 4 info Rene :-)
Mio, min mio..
Heading still for Bay City, Sarnia, London, Norfolk, Buffalo and the Niagara waterfalls over there into the next week. I`ll try to be more active on 20 meters at around 2000 UTC and in between 0100 and 0200 UTC on 14285 and 14345 kc since propagation is improving.Still, sleeping, eating and cycling are my three priorities. For the last 4 days I covered 500+ km. My GPS tells me that I've been cycling for 480 hours, if I should've done the trip non-stop..














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