TAT bust; future travel plans

I've been home from my TAT ride for several weeks now. More accurately, it was a 1/2-TAT as I headed home after riding Colorado.

My age and the Oklahoma heat did me in.

Oklahoma was three days of slow, sandy riding in 104F/40C heat with more of the same for Utah. Colorado was a cool relief in between that made the upcoming desert even less appealing than if I hadn't ridden in those snow-covered mountains.

I rented a cargo van in Ouray, loaded the bike and headed home.

Some readers may recall that I lost my antenna in New Mexico (left it in a hotel). After that, the KX2/etc seemed like dead weight that I was hauling for nothing. I never came up with another antenna solution, therefore no activations after New Mexico.

My favorite states to ride through - for very different reasons - were Arkansas and New Mexico. I met so many fun and interesting people along the way, both motorcyclists and regular folk. The KX2 performed well, as I knew it would. Heat, humidity, engine vibration - it shrugged them all off and continues to perform as new.

Ditto with the bike. Flawless in every regard. Me, on the other hand...

The little lady and I have some upcoming travel plans that are more age appropriate and ham radio will be an included feature in the first two of them:

• August: A long drive, POTA rove, from Florida to Washington state, hopefully including Vancouver Island. In a car...an air conditioned car! FT-891 for this trip.
• October (and this is tentative): ZA/AE5X? Yep, Albania, with the KX2.
• Jan/Feb: back to Vietnam & Thailand. No radio for this trip but we loved it there last year and want to go back for a longer stay.

73 for now!

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