CresentCity - Coos Bay

After being two weeks on the road its time for a roundup. Almost 700 miles on the counter, 12 days of sunny weather and met a lot of nice people. It is probably 'possible to reach Vancouver by the end of the month. Bike and fysicalwise everything is a-ok, the muscles on the lega are re-appearing after 6 months . The trip from Brookings to Port Orford brought on the longly anticipated rain and rainclouds. One positive thing about it is that the winds changed during bath weather to the south so wind in the back. From now on, read as of entering Oregon state, the weather will be as a roling dice, but most cloud-covered and rather chilly. It will also be another challenge ti keeper everything dry, cycling in the rain is not difficult but stopping , looking for a good campplace and setting up the tent dry is rather hard.. The landscape has changed to into a rather open and not dramatical as North California, but still great , even with the rain. It looks a bit like the road in between Stavanger and Bergen, Norway. Further on North than Port Orford the landscape is more open and so do the slopes. Bandon is a 'Wenduine' at the pacific, nice and cheap fish&ships resto's dough. Moneywise it is very possible to keeper expences low thanks to the low statepark campingfees of 5$. Food is quite cheap and compareble to Aldus and Lidl-levels. A decent warm meal can be found from about 10 to 15 dollar. A meal in McDo and BuKing from 5$ all-in. And yes , Root-beer, Mtn Dew, Dr. Pepper are all standard drink over here, great ! No need to go to the Graré-store in Wilrijk. The only regret I have untill now is buying a T-Mobile simcard, the edge-data only works in greater cities. Calls can be made over the AT&T network in other places but no data. I was certainly better of with Verizon or plain AT&T.

I heard OP4K , Joseph from Antwerp on tuesdayevening at 2319 local on 14245 ragchewing with the westcoast, tried cycling Humbold but no succes. Andreas DG0OBU heard me on 14278 at 2235 local with 43 , he used 750 W and 4 elements. Actually my impression is that the best time for a good opening to Europe is 0515 to 0615 UTC. If I can TX in the next days I give a shout +-QRM on 14285 every 15 mind inbetween the above-mentioned times. On 40 meters I discovered a new group on 7177 at 21-23 local with Chris N6WM, Danny K7SS, Randy KH6RC, Norman NH6I and Joe N6WN. Nice to listen and talk to.

Westport - CresentCity

After heading up for the Redwoods on Thursday I met a bunch of very nice people on state park campsites and into the wild. The SP's (State Parcs) are only 5 dollars a night , very cheap, clean, hot water, showers, electricity.. There was the double couple from Seattle that was heading up for the south - Yosemite - that invited me to join them around the campfire for dinner. First I just wanted to heat up my canned meal with meatballs and vegetables into their fire. But... it only contained the 'jus' for making the meal on the frontpicture of the can.. No dinner, but the neighbours were way too friendly. Thanks ! After Weott I joined - for some distance - a 'race' on sunday but had to leave it for Eureka. On the path of the race there were some hams that stood in for the communication in between the checkpoints since no cellphone was usable in that area. I met Jim, AC6YV , Dan KE6HEC and his xyl (also a ham) , and Dan KI6HDC. Had some free fruit and juice on the way.

Eureka is a typical little city of the county Humbold. Not much to see.

Tried to look for a place on the beach north of it but no succes, rain was hanging into the air. I could setup camp onto the lawn of a local farmer in Arcata. It rained during the night but again went sunny and windy in the morning. Sunday I visited the little town of Trinidad and saw two whales, playing in the bay. Ate a whole chicken, beans and had some milk as dinner. Set up the tent in state park prairie creek Redwoods. Met a 70 year old cyclists Ron from fort Bragg who was cycling upto Seattle to meet his children. Also a couple from Seattle was cycling to San Francisco. At 5 o'clock in the morning my stomache said I needed to go.. and for four times after that I took some Imodium.. I think dinner was the cause. Charged batteries and cycled up over to state park del norte coast just south of Cresent City. Broke one of the tentpoles and fixed it with the repairkit. Does anyone knows a good tentshop in between here and Vancouver ? Made a campfire that helped me to heat up the - now real - meatball can .. My fleece and long trousers will be stinky-winky in the morning but then again.. Made several contacts on 40 meters with VE7OJ Adam in Vancouver, KE7NCO Scotty in Reno Nevada, Dave KE6YX in Oakland and Julien KK7JX in Le Grand, Oregon. Julien informed me that his friend KE1THR is doing a cycletrip from Alaska to Texas with also a qrp radio in the bagg. Would be fun if we could meet on frequency or in visu ! At the moment I'm really in a very low budget-mode : very cheap or free campsites and some 10 dollars a day for food. Already food has to be stored into special bear-proof boxes that only men with an IQ of more than 80 can open.. Saw a few wild elks on the way and very nice flowers in the Redwoods. Seems that spring is following my trial as hoped for.

RIP Wouter Weylandt

Just read the news 10 miles south of Cresent City on freeway 101 next to the Trees of mystery...

http://m.sporza.be/cm/sporza.mobile/m_wielrennen/1.1020065

Fort Bragg / Mendocino

Yes ! Mission accomplished !

In the evening of thursday 5th may 2011 local time 22:25 and 05:25 utc I was able to contact Johan ON7HJA in the Limburg on 14240 kc SSB with my dipole at 6 meters above the ground hanging in E/W direction and 5 (FIVE!) watts going out of the FT817 while I was in my sleepingbag in my little tent near Garberville in the Redwoods, California USA (locator CN80ca) with no cellcoverage !

I just came above the noise in the start and by 22:45 local Johan understood it Q5 .. imagine .. goosebumps all over the place.. wááy too crazy ..

Thanks very much for this contact, I can go home now hahi.

I went on to call CQ until 30 minuten later but I couldn't hear anyone else. Johan said that there were other ON-stations on frequency but no win on this side for them.. I was put on the cluster by Johan, who was using an optibeam and 500 watts.

It seems that propagation over the long path is possible at 05:30 UTC, I didn't count on that. To ON-land is about 5500 miles or some 8000 km in short-pad.

Have worked some Estonian,Lithuanian and German OM's before working Johan..just following the greyline..

Also have been talking on 40 meters with some more local guys that are following me like N7EKD, AB7TJ on 7136 kc at 16:30 utc and a group at 17 utc on 7186 kc with WA6PSG and a bunch of other guys in the round. Two meters is also working but not too many people are QRV.

I made a fandipole out of the 20 and 40 meter wires and it does seems to perform rather good or is that an understatement ;-)

Bicyclingwise it's going perfect, doing some 45 miles a day as planned and that's my 'tourist-mode'. Just heading for the avenue of the giants Redwoods towards Eureka.

The weather continous to be perfect , blue skies, +- 23 celcius and headwind.. I should - statisticly speaking - encounter clouds or rain in Oregon, I'll proof them wrong ;-)

I walked into Jim and Ann thursdaynight in Westport campground (5 dollar), great people from Kamloops and hope to meet them later on the trip. Just will not be able to bring along a bottle of cheap wine Jim, it will break, cookies will be fine ?..

Crossed some nice 3000 footers on the way, just for warming up later this trip. Also ran into some Germans, Mexican, Spanish and Canadian cyclers. The Spanish guy got me interested into couchsurfing, maybe go into that also if I'll find the time and goesting.

At a gasstation I saw a car with Texas licenseplates parking just in front of me while eating some low budget canned ravioli. Preparing for some real Texas guy to step out of the car, a young blondine and a long blond male god stepped out and asked me 'does the B stand for Belgium ?' One minute later we were speaking swedish as they were on a holidaytrip... small world ..

State parks are great to camp into btw. 5 dollar for a place in the woods, shower, both water and electricity. There is no control on the payment whatsoever. Just put 5 dollar in a small envelope and seal it with your name on it and put it in a box for 'possible controls'. Heading for Eureka tomorrow.

Coverage of the AT&T or T-Mobile network is rather bad. Some comes have coverage but the best network over here seems to be Verizon. Just relying on public WiFi for the moment and from time to time edge. Can't complain dough..

Navarro river Mendocino

After two more days cycling Northbound I've spend the night in a firestation in Sea Ranche. Good bunkbed and a very wide TV .. thx to Robin and Shelley ! Some miles up there was the Point Arena lighthouse. That's the point located the most to the west of mainland-USA (except for Alaska). Found a very smart guy up in the tower that was touring me around. That's the area and lighthouse used in the movie  Forever Young with Mell Gibson. Took me some time to get back on the bicycle and at 19z I ended up at the beach in Navaro River Redwoods state park. People wandering around on the beach offered me a cup of wine. Woke up alive and made some contacts on 40 with VE7YP, joe N7EKD, frank AB7TJ, steve KE7RTV and ed K6HP with 2 watts and a very low dipole. Ready to go up to Mendocino and Fort Bragg now.