[ADXA] Tues

[Richard Harris]

Well, turned out to be an interesting day.... about 315 miles.  Started out
driving to Abiquiu, NM.... home of Georgia O'Keeffe - famous American
artist and one of the (past) major stops on the Old Spanish Trail out of
Santa Fe (to Los Angeles).
First I couldn't find the trail marker where I thought it was. Finally
located a New Mexico Historical Marker hidden behind some shrubs and hard
to see from the road. Next... got set up... no power... Murphy had me (and
my own fault).... the power cord from the rental car battery had no fuzes
in the fuze line - how stupid was that! I checked everything and assumed
(bad word) the fuzes were inserted in my power cord. Who takes fuzes out?
Apparently I do....

That caused a 40 mile roundtrip back to a town to find fuzes... that done,
back to Abiquiu and on the air.  Condx not too bad but not much East Coast.
Using the shorted Hustler mast with a magnetic mount on the roof - same one
I used in Hawaii and Alaska. Ended up with 69 Q's - 54 on ssb and 15 on cw.

Back heading south to Bandelier Nat Monument. Was there back in January.
New surprise - approaching signs say no cars, all must take the shuttle bus
from White Rock, CO, Visitor's Center - about 8 miles from the park. Bummer.
Stop and entrance and talk to the Ranger. She tells me no cars from May 18
to Oct 18 as they average 700 people a day. BUT I can pull into the
campground right next to the entrance with no problem. Campground is hardly
used except on Memorial Day, July 4th, Albuquerque Balloonfest and Labor
Day. So I pull in, set up and manage to work 123 - 100 on ssb and 23 on cw.
Bad news is I couldn't go down to the visitor's center in the park to get
my book stamped. Another time!

I began to hear thunder to the west and some pretty dark clouds. With my
time lost in the morning and incoming bad (maybe) weather and limited time
to get the rental car back on time, I decided to skip Valles Caldera
National Preserve (15 miles to the west) for another time.

You might ask why a rental car?  Week and half ago my bad luck VW diesel
died for the final time (repair estimate $ 5000) so I bought a new Mazda
yesterday (Monday). I want to get out to Chaco Culture which is really out
in the boonies - I think about 45 miles of gravel road that's also pretty
poor for about 3 miles. Don't want to take my new car out there so I will
use another rental for there and Aztec Ruins - probably in August.

Anyway, beautiful day (but too hot) and the rental car  radio trial run
worked out ok.

Picture - Campground at Bandelier. Note the antenna! 73 Rick
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