Summary of Holiday Travel Radio-Related Activities

My holiday travel for the 2022-23 season was nice and complicated this year, but also gave me the opportunities for additional radio adventures! My feet-on-ground (outside of airports) sequence for this was: WI-IL-IN-OH-KY-ME-MA-NH-WI. Through that, I managed to escape major storm-related travel delays and generally have abnormally nice weather throughout. I ended up with hundreds of portable QSOs across 13 park entities and 3 summits, plus nearly a hundred QSOs at my parents' QTH. So, on to the summary!

Leg one: Wisconsin to Ohio. The first destination was the greater Cincinnati area to visit the not-in-laws side of the family.

WI-IL-IN: drive-through. While I would have loved to add Indiana to my POTA activated states, the time on road, weather conditions (cloudy and flurries), and availability of parks (many closed at dusk/sunset) meant that I'll take my go at an Indiana park some other day. It will probably be northern Indiana, possibly even on Lake Michigan and thus closer to home (if still a trip [around/through Chicago] to get there).

OH-KY:

• Stonelick State Park (K-1993) for a nice evening activation and to put Ohio on my POTA list
  
• Cincinnati's Star Tower just to see it (as informed by this thread) before moving on
  
• Hamilton County HP (W8O/SW-012) for a nice late-morning activation, some good DX, and my first S2S contact ever
• Big Bone Lick State Historic Site (K-3779) to see some of the history ahead of my next stop and get Kentucky in
• Lewis and Clark National Historic Trail (K-4572 @KY) to watch the sun set on the banks of the Ohio River looking onto downtown Cincinnati, but then too late to try to repeat the trick on the north bank of the river

Then came the great cold front of December 22-23. With free flight changes offered, I moved my flight out of Cincinnati up 12 hours and connected through Atlanta. Best possible choice! I made it to Maine and a warm bed at my parents' place ahead of the storm the whole time.

ME:

• After getting in, meeting all the pets (two cats, a dog, freshwater shrimp and fish, and the chickens), and helping cook to keep everyone well fed, I made and deployed a ~106' doublet fed with 50' of 100 ohm UTP at ~40' for POTA hunting and some nets. Highlights include my first proper QSOs on 60 and 80m SSB, including parks!
  
• Owls Head State Park (K-2399) the first of a two-park rove with my mother. We walked up to the lighthouse, then I activated from the picnic area next to the main parking lot looking toward the south.
  
• Birch Point Beach State Park (K-2382) a quick drive around the airport to the other side of the peninsula got us this walk-in park with the gate closed for the season. A hike down the gravel road got us to the debris-washed beach from the storm and I activated at one of the picnic tables just inside the treeline.
  
• Bald Mtn. South (W1/EM-031) with clear weather, this was the first of a two-summit hike with my youngest brother. DX was Canary Islands and France on 17m, then a S2S with NH on 20m. As expected from the alerts, we ran into K1RID getting his 2022 return-to-summit in on the way down. I was able to chase him from the opposing ridge on 2m when he finished his activation, but we were rather far from the Ragged summit, so no S2S there.
  
• Ragged Mtn. (W1/EM-004) a solid hike-through from Bald, we made it to the summit as the day was getting long. I picked up K1RID's chase from the other trail, then qualified the activation on HF. The good fun was picking up a mobile station on 2m before starting the descent with sunset.
  
• Camden Hills State Park (K-2384) another park with my mother. The weather remained excellent and the Mount Battie road was even open. I activated with a wire on the hilltop with W1/EM-001 at my back and a nice view of Camden harbor out to the islands. After lunch in town, I kept going for a few more QSOs back on the hill from the car.
  
• Durham State Forest (K-4772) ATNO! After some intense research the night before, I had a good plan for how to try this previously unactivated park to ring in the New Year. This day with my dad at the wheel, my suspicions were confirmed and there was a trail on the state land well suited to my first wool blanket on a camp chair deployment. First QSOs went to P2P hunting and I ended with 20 QSOs across 4 HF bands.
  
• Moose Point State Park (K-2396) was just up the coast after some errands with dad in Belfast. Another walk-in due to the season, we hiked down the road and chose one of the picnic tables with a convenient tree. An excellent close to operation in Maine.
  

MA-NH:

• One day rove! Set off just after the sun was up properly in Maine the day before my first-thing-in-the-morning flight out of Portland. The hotel for the night was just a great way to make things easier on mom rather than us setting out from up the coast at silly-o'clock to make my flight.
  
• Willowdale State Forest (K-4755) was as far south as we needed to drive. I set up with the blanket and chair again just off the trail and slowly pushed through. Picking up some P2Ps on 20m finally made 10 in the log, so I packed up to cross the street (and river).
  
• Bradley Palmer State Park (K-2422) was just to the south of the forest, so was easy enough to pack up and hike up to the clearing and set up the chair again. Nabbing a spot on 20m, I got through the activation qualification in 10 minutes (first to 10th QSOs), then picked up a couple more on 17m for good measure.
  
• Georgetown Rowley State Forest (K-4757) was back across I-95 and to the north a bit. We got in before the parking got too totally packed and chair/blanket/side-of-trail to be on the air. Another 10 minutes (first to 10th QSOs) on 40m set the activation and I got a couple more on 15m for the good measure (and band diversity) again.
  
• Odiorne Point State Park (K-2671) took a bit more driving and an oddly timed meal to reach. At this point in the rove, there was no chance of getting back to Maine, so I was all-in on NH. DX on 15m was quite pleasant: Venezuela, Puerto Rico, and Alaska in three minutes! Facing the open ocean, the storm damage from a week and a half before was obvious.
  
• Urban Forestry Center (K-4973) is just up the road (we passed it getting to Odiorne Point) and is open late (relative to most parks under consideration)! Fortuitous given the winter sunset time on the east coast. A straightforward 20 and 40m activation in under 30 minutes got us back out of the cold and on the road to Maine so I could continue the path back to WI.
  

WI:

• New year, new places. How best to round out the first week of the new year but by going to a new summit and a new park for me?
  
• Platte Mounds (W9/WI-017) a straightforward summit with a staircase to get you most of your elevation gain. Renown for the giant "M" (dadah) in white rocks above the parking lot, it's easy so long as you can get there. Great fun on VHF to kick things off, then some decent time on HF and a passing bald eagle.
  
• Belmont Mound State Park (K-1438) is just down the road as the less substantial mound in comparison to Platte. A nice, free state park with bathrooms and a shelter. However, I opted to climb the only-hiking road to the top for my activation. Two hours of operating later, I went 0 to 7 on activated bands! Definitely the joys of adding HT contacts to the list. Then it was back down the mound for a spectacular sunset and an excellent moonrise on the way back home.
  

New Wallpaper: Gold POTA Activator (30 unique entities), Rover Warthog (5 entities in 1 UTC day), and Howells Spectacular Thelypody Hunter (500 unique entities), plus progress on P2P and new entities hunted! Nearing 600 total entities hunted after everything.

Overall, a fantastic burst of activity. Certainly not something I can maintain with work, not having home antennas, and the upcoming probably-rest-of-winter. Potentially more posts, including images, coming for these activities. Also the POTA wiki is back, but I haven't worked on that, either.

72,
Thomas