Tag: pota

Birthday Trip to Paso Robles

On By The Flying DutchmanIn HAM, RV Life, TravelLeave a comment

Since I had a conflicting event on Cristy’s birthday we decided to celebrate a few days early by taking trip to Paso Robles and more importantly, Cambria. Cambria is Cristy’s favorite town in the world and would live there if she could. If she did live there, I’d visit her as often as I could. I can’t stand fog. At any rate we hitched up our Lance travel trailer on Sunday morning and headed out.

We left around 9:30 am which put us in Coalinga around 11:30 am, my lunch time for the past 40 years when I was working. We pulled into Harris Ranch and parked in their large gravel lot just adjacent to the Harris Ranch Airport. We took about a 45 minute break to make a sandwich and just relax for a bit. After eating and stretching we got back on the road. With the wind at our backs we got good gas mileage and it was only an hour and fifteen minute drive to Sun Outdoors Central Coast Wine Country Resort. Such an easy to remember name. There were three other RV’s checking in when we got there but it was a short wait and soon we were backing into our site. We spent the rest of the afternoon just relaxing. Ah, retirement life. For dinner we headed into Paso Robles and got some great food at Mediterranean Spice. I got a personal pizza and Cristy got a beef shawarma platter. It was VERY good.

The next day we made a bee line to Cambria and, more specifically, Cambria Coffee Company. This little hole-in-the-wall coffee shop serves the best coffee in Cambria. They are located in the West Village closer to the shoreline than much of the rest of town. There are lots of boutique shops lining the streets in the West Village and is Cristy’s happy place. After coffee I left Cristy to explore all the shops while I headed down to Moonstone Beach, a part of Hearst / San Simeon State Park. I wanted to do a Parks On The Air activation of the State Park. I also wanted to try out a couple of different antennas that a friend had loaned me. After spending a couple of hours making FT8 contacts on the beach Cristy texted that she was done. I cleaned up all my radio equipment and drove over and picked her up.

We had lunch at the West End Bar and Grill. It was nothing to write home about but it did the job. We headed back down to Moonstone Beach where I had done my POTA activation and took some time walking on the beach. Cristy really enjoyed hunting through the tiny moonstones on the beach.

On Tuesday we headed BACK to Cambria, have I said yet that this is Cristy’s favorite place in the world? We got coffee at Cambria Coffee Rosasters again and then made a quick dash to Cambria downtown to Linn’s Easy As Pie Cafe. Linn’s is probably the best restaurant in Cambria. We met the owner last time we were there and he is a very personable guy who loves his customers and his restaurant. The Easy As Pie Cafe is a place to grab quick bites to eat as well as slices of their wonderful pies. We just stopped in to grab a jar of Olallieberry Jam.

Afterwards it was on to the main thrust of the day. Cristy let me have one day to do some more POTA activations. We stopped at three places where I was able to activate:

  • US-1157 Harmony Headlands State Park
  • US-3418 Cayucos State Beach
  • US-3480 Morro Strand State Beach














After the first two POTA stops we drove down to Morro Bay to have a late lunch at Tognazzini’s Dockside Restaurant and then on to Morro Strand for the final activation. Cristy enjoyed a walk on the beach while I did my nerdy ham radio stuff. On this beach we discover tons of a jellyfish-like creature called a “By-the-wind-sailor” or Vallela vallela.

Wednesday belonged to Cristy. We slept in and I made scrambled eggs for Cristy’s breakfast. She wanted us to drive down to San Luis Obispo so she could spend some time doing indoor hunting (shopping). We stopped off for coffee at Scout Coffee Company, arguably the BEST coffee we’ve ever had. So good we bought Angela a bag of their Ethiopian blend. After coffee Cristy perused the stores while I read the news on my phone. We had lunch at a “nothing to write home about” Mexican place there in SLO. It was very “fast-foody” and the fish tacos were only okay. After lunch Cristy had pretty much seen everything she wanted to see so we decided to head back to Cuyucos since we really liked the laid back beach there. It must have been what Avila Beach was like about 30 years ago. We had dinner at Duckie’s Chowder House in Cayucos. At least it was better than the place in SLO. But being before the season really opens, they just didn’t seem to have their hearts in it. We wanted to watch the sunset on the beach, however, the fog started rolling in. I could see it was coming from the south so we drove north back towards Cambria. We had to drive up to San Simeon which is only a few miles north of Cambria before we finally beat the fog. We found a beach access road just next to some hotels and pulled in to watch the sunset.

Overall we really enjoyed our trip to Paso Robles and the coast. However, one thing I should mention. Calfiornia had just had several days of high winds. When we got to Paso Robles our allergies started kicking in from all the grass pollen that was being blown off the hills into town. We couldn’t wait to get to Cambria and SLO to get away from the pollen but our allergies were just as bad on the coast! The ONLY place we got relief from our allergies was when we were standing on the beach. Not near the beach, not in the parking lot, ON the beach. That all being said we loved it there and it was a great way to celebrate Cristy’s birthday!

POTA 3-Fer

On By The Flying DutchmanIn Campgrounds, HAM, retirement, RV Life1 Comment

Okay, 99.9% of you are scratching your heads and trying to figure out what the subject of this post means. Allow me to explain. When I was planning my retirement all I heard from friends, coworkers, and fellow church-goers was “but what are you going to do?” Well, about 10 years ago I fell into one of my hobbies, ham radio, backwards. I never really got into all that much except to chat with other hams on the way home from work in the evenings. Sitting in a dark room (known as a ham shack) talking on a radio to strangers didn’t really appeal to me. The I discovered Parks On The Air and things changed for me.

The whole point of Parks On The Air or POTA was to get ham radio operators out of their ham shacks and out into nature. See sunshine. Breathe fresh air. Touch grass. So you get a portable radio, a portable, power supply, a portable antenna, go find a valid park on the POTA website and THEN talk to strangers. Well, now that was for me! How you make your radio, power source, and antenna mobile is completely up to you.

The goal is to make 10 contacts over ham radio to other operators around the country and around the world. Once you make those 10 contacts the park is considered “activated” and you receive credit for activating that park. You are now a POTA activator. The people who contact you are POTA hunters. They are trying to get credit for contacting people in as many parks as possible. This isn’t just US, this is world wide and has breathed new life into ham radio.

I planned a camping trip this week so that I would be near a spot where I could attempt to activate 3 parks simultaneously. On Wednesday I hauled my travel trailer up to Moccasin Point Campground which would be my staging area for Thursdays attempt to activate Tuolumne Wild and Scenic River, Stanislaus National Forest, and Yosemite National Park simultaneously. The trick is you have to be within the boundaries of all three of those areas to make it count. I found a spot that I thought would work. But then I think a lot of things so… I checked with the people who run POTA. They said that they couldn’t tell me it wasn’t impossible. Huh? Sounds like a green light to me!

If you look at the area where the gray shading (Yosemite National Park) and the blue shading (Stanislaus National Forest) intersect over the south fork of the Tuolumne River, that is where I set up.

So on Thursday morning I drove up Priest’s Grade from Moccasin. I stopped off at Mountain Sage Coffee and picked up a dark chocolate orange mocha. Complete with orange rind in it. It was delicious and gave me the fuel I needed to press on the additional 35 minutes to my planned activation spot just outside the gates to Yosemite National Park. I parked in the Upper Carlon Day Use Area and got to setting up my “outdoor ham shack”. I put up the antenna about 30 feet uphill from the truck and set my laptop and radio up on the tailgate. I had planned to hike in a little bit but I was able to get my truck far enough up the trail to be within the boundaries of the 3 areas.

What a great day. The radio bands were terrible. I was only able to make any contacts on 20 meters. Normally I can do 10m, 15m, 17m, and 20m. But today the atmosphere just wasn’t having it. Still, there were no clouds, it was about 72 degrees, and I made 19 contacts; more than enough to activate the three parks. I packed up and slowly made my way back to Groveland via Hardin Flat Rd rather than Hwy 120. I decided to swing by Rainbow Pool just to relive some old memories most of which were pleasant. The one where my niece Tracey started cramping and almost drowned was not one of them. Luckily my girlfriend at the time saw her and pulled her to the edge of the creek. They charge a day use fee there. I chatted with the nice Japanese lady who was manning the toll booth (okay, it was a table with a sun shade over it). I told her I just wanted to drive through and take a picture so she didn’t charge me anything. Then made my way back down Priest’s Grade and back to the campground.

Rainbow Pool
Rainbow Pool Day Use Area

So, all in all, a wonderful day! So my answer to all those people who asked what am I going to do when I retire hasn’t changed one bit; “ANYTHING I want.”