Radio Waves and Road Trips: Merging Ham Radio with Vacation Adventures

Whether you're a regular listener or first-time guest , we're excited to have you here and we appreciate your support . So thank you for tuning in to today's episode . Let's get into today's show . Today I'm your host , paul callsign N1OG , and I'm with co-host .

I'm sans hat this evening , so , but everybody knows that the best hat out there is the uh , the flex fit multicam . I want to thank everybody that's purchased from the store . Uh , todd recently purchased the hat and so awesome . Thank you for that .

Hello everybody , we got some news Slow down Boog .

Recently , kilo Bravo One Zulu Tango X-Ray says Just saying hello , from Laconia , started listening to you guys earlier this year . I'm currently working on my extra license and hope to test this fall . I belong to the central New Hampshire amateur radio club .

However , they're going through some changes with the new board , so not much to report as far as club activity , but the show is great . By the way , I enjoy listening to the podcast .

So , uh , thank you very much for the review and we appreciate everybody that gives a listen and a review and we're more than happy to read those reviews on air yeah , I want to make a quick shout out to uh , a new ham that I met at our club meeting , uh , keith chopler .

So I introduced myself to him , I'm talking to him and all of a sudden he goes . Hey , he goes , he goes . Do you do a podcast ? He goes , live free in ham Right , I'm like , yeah , he goes . Oh , my God , it goes . I can't believe it's you . He goes . I recognize your voice , he goes . I was listening to her on the way here to the meeting .

Moving on to the next segment , uh , in each episode we try and showcase some of the good that clubs are trying to do in the hobby , and we're asking you , the listener doing good , good , doing good you do , that's good you're good , you , the listener , doing good , good , doing good you do , that's good , do good , Do good , you're doing good , good , good , good ,

good , absolutely .

So if you're in a club , email us at livefreeandham at gmailcom and let us know how your club is doing good for the hobby . Let us know how your club is doing good for the hobby . All right , moving on , this is the part of the show where we help Todd study for his extra . And now for something a little extra with Todd W1STJ .

Without any further delay , I will begin my VE Quizmaster duties . All right , todd . So question number one from sub-element number one of the extra exam question pool which UHF amateur bands have frequencies that are authorized for space stations ?

70 centimeters only B , 70 centimeters and 33 centimeters , c , 33 centimeters and 13 centimeters , or is it D , 70 centimeters and 13 centimeters ?

For the third and final question , amateur stations may not transmit in which of the following frequency segments if they are located in the contiguous 48 states and north of line A , 48 states and north of line A , is it A 440 MHz to 450 MHz , b 53 MHz to 54 MHz , c 420 MHz to 430 MHz or D 222 MHz to 223 MHz ?

All you got to do is send us an email , livefreeandham at gmailcom , and we will be sure to mention you on our next episode . All you got to do is send us an email , livefreeandhamcom , and we will be sure to mention you On our next episode . So , todd , in the usual format , how was your radio Ham Radio Week ?

I did go to the club meeting on Friday , so that was , I guess , ham radio related . I had a talk on digital modes which was somewhat interesting and I learned a little bit . But that's about it . I haven't really pulled the radio out .

I know I have to charge my battery for my poda stuff and I'm I have to charge my battery for my POTUS stuff and I'm hoping to get out this week for sure .

Of course it's nothing that we're not used to at this point , but uh , there's , uh , there's a lot of new hams that you know don't don't have an understanding of all the digital modes that are out there and the things that we could do .

So I um , I really didn't get to play a lot of radio per se , but uh , I did , uh I did manage to get the uh special event station for the navajo code talkers , uh , earlier today , and well , it wasn't easy yeah , you had to be an extra right .

So I know , when I was doing one of my poda activations recently , it was just , it was weird , because I get a guy like five , nine , then I wouldn't hear him again and then he popped back up and you know he disappeared . It would take us like five , six minutes just to get the content complete , just because he was in and out .

So , uh , I guess that's just the way the bands are rolling these days well , uh .

No , I mean , look at , since we had that big storm a couple months ago , on my stupid app that says what , what bands are good , and I it said for the last , every day , 20 and 40 , all day long poor . I haven't seen anything but poor , and it's not always the case , because I've worked 20 meters and it's actually been pretty good and my app said poor .

So I don't really rely on that app anymore . So maybe I'll just go to you and ask you how the band's doing . You seem to know more than than the app does well .

But the the propagation app . Just to point out that is primarily a sky wave propagation prediction , right ? So it's not taking into account ground wave , and when we go new parks , that's typically what we're dealing with . So , right , that's where you know it . It might be absolutely horrible conditions for sky wave , but ground wave works well enough that we can .

We can make it happen . Yeah , very good , sweet , all right . Well , uh , I guess , with that , let's , uh , let's get into the meat , uh , meat and potatoes of the show .

So we came up with live free in hand , which I think goes a long way . But uh , back to our very beginning , thinking about starting this uh podcast and doing it . That's what we started , that's what eric came up with and , uh , he had a logo and everything .

you guys did a great job and you know , uh , it's just interesting to see you know the ham and potatoes , versus now it's live free and ham , and of course I love live free and ham yeah , no , I think that's .

So , yeah , yeah . So if you say something , you get on our podcast , or you uh call in and make some kind of unique thing , you might see uh , your don't , we might get a domain name that will go right to our podcast by the end of the year .

Um , given the , the fact that we're at another height of prime vacation time , as people are trying to get in their vacations before school start , um , what do you take with you when you go on vacation ? Do you plan to play radio , or do you say you know what it's vacation ? I'm going to take a break from radio as well me .

No , yeah , um , I bring my uh since I mean eric's not here to give me an answer .

If I got a lunch break , I'm near a park , I'm driving back , I'll take my lunch break and go activate a park instead of eat lunch . But on vacations I kind of plan my vacations and then , whatever we're doing , I look to see , okay , what parks can I get while I'm there .

And when I'm on vacation with the family , they a lot of times don't want to get up , crack a dawn and start doing stuff . So I get up real early , get out and do a real early morning activation .

So when I went down to north carolina in june , uh , we were in virginia for one night , we stayed overnight just south of richmond and uh , I saw a park about 10 , probably 15 minutes away . Just a little research around , I said , okay , I'm going to activate this thing . I got up at like six in the morning they were still sleeping and , uh , stole the car .

I guess we only had one .

I don't think I could have swam over with my gear over my head keeping it . So there was one park , it was nice , it was seven miles , it was a wildlife refuge and , uh , I got up every morning six , seven o'clock in the morning , cause it was so hot at that week that we were down . There was like like 100 degrees every day .

It was ridiculous and I'd get up early and activate that park . And so I did that . And then on the way home we stopped at my uncle's house in Maryland and there's a nice park that I always wanted to do but I'd never had the chance to do it , for whatever reason .

And the day we were coming home I again got up early , left the fam and cruised out to a park for a couple hours and activated that one . So I bring it with me . I'm going to St John in November and I am definitely bringing my Poetagear , because three-quarters of that island is the park , so every beach on that island . It's basically a nine-square mile .

I think it's only nine square miles , but it is all park . So it's uh St John national park . It was donated by one of the Rockefellers and , uh , it's one of the places that one of the reasons I love that island so much is because it's just so natural .

Uh , there's basically two towns there's uh Coral Bay and uh Cruise Bay and , um , they're on either ends of the island and everything in between is , uh , pretty much a national park . So I'm uh , I'm going to be activating down there , uh , the week before Thanksgiving .

So that should be fun and you guys should try to work me because it's not a very active park . I don't think a lot of people bring ham radio gear down there park . I don't think a lot of people bring ham radio gear down there .

I'm not , there's not too many people that have activated it , but , uh , I plan on activating this every day that I'm down there , at least every morning , and maybe maybe in the evening too . Maybe I'll do a late shift .

I don't think I had all my poda gear and I just brought my HT with an Ed Fong antenna and tried to work some local repeaters , you know , down I hit St Croix , you know I want to say St Croix is maybe 30 miles , 40 miles away St Thomas and I could hear Puerto Rico too .

So a lot of cool , a lot of cool things just using an Ed Fong , and it was just I , just you , you know clipped it up to the top of the gutter of the condo .

I just hung it out and stuck it to my h HT and I pre-programmed it with local repeaters , like within the area and see what I could hear , and it was mainly listening , just to see what I got . But I made a couple of contacts out there on on repeaters . But this time I'm bringing the HF gear and it's going to be fun .

So it's really hard to get the family hey , let's go do some ham radio to work in , you know , within my vacation , because I'm the only one in the family that does it . So it's really hard to get the family hey , let's go do some ham radio . You know they're like , nah , we're not doing that .

But I did go down to the Cape Uh , wasn't , I'm going to the Cape the end of August , and uh , for a week , and I didn't go last year but we went the year before , and the year before I did activate .

There's a Cape Cod Rail Trail which is a park , so I did activate that and I did set up my HF stuff on the deck just to kind of listen and play a little bit of radio , see what was going on . And so that was pretty cool because you know , I figured I'm right on the Cape , right on the ocean .

I mean we're probably , like I don't know , a mile , mile walk to the ocean , um , so that was cool . But I also brought , three or four years ago I , when I first got my Ed Fong antenna , I had brought that with um , with the pole , you know , with the PVC pipe , and then I put it on a tripod and I had my HT . And this was before I was a general .

So this was like when I was just starting and , um , I worked a repeater on five Watts like super strong um , 60 miles away . So I was in West Dennis and I'm not sure where they were , like in Rhode Island or something , and the guy couldn't believe it . He's like he goes , you're like , you're full of it .

I said I , you , I said I'm sitting here on the backyard at a picnic table . I got this ed fong antenna hooked up to my , my ht , I'm pushing five watts and yeah , you're coming in .

Great , I was like amazed but uh , it was pretty cool because I also , you know , we were we're dennis , we're west dennis's , it's dennis is a town , it's kind of like in the central center of the Cape before you get to the Chatham , which is the hook , if you guys aren't from New England , and Chatham or Dennis goes all the way across to the bay and then

to the ocean side . So we're on the ocean side and to me it's the better side . There's no sharks there and it's warmer . It To me it's the better side . There's no sharks there and it's warmer .

The bay is actually colder , probably 10 degrees colder than the ocean side when we go , because I've gone over to the ocean side it's like 66 , and I go over to the ocean side , it's like 76 . I mean huge difference .

But I have this little shark app , because everyone knows that there's a lot of sharks at the Cape and they basically start at Chathatham and they go all the way around to Provincetown and they're inside and outside . For the last five , six years since I've had this app , I haven't seen one shark sighting on our beach .

So I'm pretty confident that they like to hang out where the seals are and there's no seals on our side . So , um , so yeah . So it's uh , it's cool .

I , I , I just worked the ham radio around my , uh , my vacation and if I can get it in , I try to get it in and , like I said , it's , it's normally like it's always secondary , at least when I'm on vacation , but it's it's a priority for me , so I make sure I get at least one activation and so I'll do a few ham radio stuff .

Uh , in a couple of weeks when I go down there , definitely bring in my gear . I think I might bring my DX 10 and set it up at the house and then , and then bring the you know , and then the eight 91 I'll bring to the parks . Yeah , there you go , yeah .

We get a , my in-laws get a lake house , you know , up in in Center Barnstead , New Hampshire , and it's right on upper Lower Suncook Lakes . So the primary focus of the vacation is fishing . Really it's just a lot of fishing . But I always bring my radio because I like to play radio .

There's a little picnic table down by the water and so I like to just bring my stuff and and I'll , I'll , I'll probably , uh , I'll probably bring the Wolf River coil this time . Um , I like the , I like the Reliance , uh , and fed halfway bug bug out mini . I love that antenna , but uh , there's just , there's not a lot of really good trees to put it in .

So I'll probably , uh , bring the wolf over coil and set that up on the hill and , uh , just , you know , play radio from the picnic table .

For those of you who don't know how to fish , it's like that is either you either know how to do it or you quit fishing because it'll bird nest on you and once you master it , you will never want to go back right , yep , and he is all over that and he's been catching fish .

And so , uh , the rail trail is where Eric and I are working on our kilo and there's a pond there so I can get him to . Hey , you want to go fishing ? And he'll go fish in , I'll activate the park and then I'll finish off with fishing with him .

So if he needs help or whatever , I can help him . So it gave me an idea . I'm like , all right , he wants to go fishing every day and I like fishing , but I'm not an everyday fisherman , you know like he wants to go morning , noon and night and it's taking up a lot of my summer going fishing . So then I started looking on the poda map .

I'm like , hmm , I go , where are there parks that have fishing locations ? And sure enough , I found a couple parks that are right on lakes or ponds , that are actually like state forests and stuff . And I said there's one in wilton that I haven't done . I think it's called russetanipo .

And then this other one , like I said , rubble russell , abbott state forest , I think it is .

There's picnic tables and everything and and the boy can fish . Um , there's a , uh , there's an old , old , uh ice , uh , ice house , like . So back in like the 18 , 1900s when they used to collect the ice from the lake in in the winter . There's , they still have the rails that go out into the water .

It was in the summer , but it was after like everyone had left , cause , you know , the place is crazy Like during the day in the summer , like at that beach , I mean , it's like it's like the town , it's like brookline's town swimming hole . Right , yeah , I would assume .

Yeah , so it's pretty crowded , so I didn't want to go there when there's like a thousand people there . But it was nice , there's no one there . It was , uh , beautiful . The sun was setting and I kind of got into activating and I was . I looked at my watch . I'm shit , I was just late . I was almost late picking up my parents at the airport .

I go , that would have been good .

Well , my radio is my personal item in my backpack , so it works and if I drive . You know I can bring more . It's not a big deal , doesn't take up too much space , and uh , yeah , you know , I don't think that I've flown anywhere in almost 10 years like it's .

Yeah , I know , commercial I mean it can just be , but but with my job , when I had to go down South and do stuff , you start to get to know the ins and outs and you know , like I learned when I'm on those little sardine cans I think this was the C 900 . So it was a little . American airline planes are like , they're long and skinny .

They look like like long Lear jets .

So I always sit on the left side because that's where the doors are and I would just sit there and wait and everyone's rushing to doors are and I would just sit there and wait and everyone's rushing to get off and I'd wait until my bag I saw my bag come out and then I'd go out there and it'd be sitting there . I'd grab it .

Meanwhile everyone's like on that tramway , like sitting there waiting in line to get their bags . I'm like this is how you do it . You know , you learn from experience . So I kind of mastered that and then I figured out how to get into the American airline club .

We were ready to take off , we were like on the runway , we had to come back and then we got back there , the maintenance guy wasn't there and then we waited like an hour and then the pilot ran out of time and then they had no more pilots so we weren't going to leave until seven in the morning .

So now it's like I was supposed to leave it , like I was supposed to leave at four . It's now one in the morning and by two in the morning they were like they they all left . They left people without hotels , they just picked up in like a long line , just left Charlotte's , a huge airport .

So I walked around and looked on the , looked it up and I said , oh , here's the American lounge , it's gotta be . I wonder if it's open . So I I mean literally there's no one in the airport . It's crazy , like just us that were there .

There's like three american flights that got screwed and we were just sitting there and like a lot of people went to hotels and stuff . So I walked around , I went in , the door was open . I got these like nice couches loud . So I'm like dude , this is like better than the hotel . So I crashed there for a night .

There you go , so yeah so yeah you learn that if you're flying single , you know alone , you know you can , you can . It doesn't have to be that bad as long as you don't bring a lot , of , a lot of stuff , uh . But yeah , it is a pain .

I mean , I I'm almost convinced that you know like people like flying out of manchester , which is our local airport , even though it costs more is better to have the layover and fly out of manchester than it is to go down to logan . But the problem is a lot of people don't like layovers . Oh , it takes so much more time .

I mean driving to logan , getting parking , driving back , it's gonna probably take you just as much time than if you have a layover .

It's right at the end of the runway and there's like the water and then it's like the park and , uh , the only negative thing about it is there's a train track right behind it and if you're activating , like at the picnic tables , that train goes by . You can't hear nothing . It's like . It's like you need to add phones stand by one .

It's kind of cool watching the planes take off with the lights and stuff , if they're using that runway and I'm not sure what runway it is , but uh .

And then I was there one time last time I did it , the um , it was all set up and I had , I had activated the park , but bands were pretty good and a guy came up to me goes , you got to leave , we're shutting down , and like they were literally going to put a gate across , like he couldn't get out of it . So I'm like , all right , I'm coming .

I just threw everything in the car , drove outside the gate and then repacked everything wow , so they were just gonna lock you in yeah , the guy's like you gotta get out of here . We're locking up . You know it was like one guy it's like his job , like you know he's probably like I want to get home . Like get the hell out of here . What are ?

Like what are people ? If I get up at six in the morning , no one else is going to be ready to go until like nine or ten at least I'm going to do for three hours right , exactly . So what am I going to do ?

I could go out , activate the park , be done before they're even like up and showered or ready to go , and I've already back in time for breakfast ? Yeah , exactly , and I get some peace and quiet and get some . I . I think going to st john's going to be good . I think I'm going to get a lot of contacts .

I think people are going to be like , holy crap , like this guy's activating , I mean , who gets st john ?

They've converted it all into condos and timeshares and it's two little towns and then pretty much everything else . It's all natural Hiking trails , there's old sugar mill ruins and then the beaches . And the beaches even the popular ones are beautiful but they're like touristy kind of things .

But there's so many of them that you can go find your own beach , like literally find your own . Just drive down a dirt road . All of a sudden there's a beach and you're there by yourself all day long . You know just little Bay or a little inlet , so it's , it's , it's an . It's an amazing place and uh , it's very low key . Uh , they live on Island time .

So like sometimes you'll go to a store , it'll just be closed and be back later . We'll be on the thing like middle of the day . Like what do you mean ? Be back later ? Restaurants you know they're open for dinner . You know sometimes they open at six , sometimes they don't . You know it's like hit or miss , see if they're open or not .

So it's kind of uh , it's very laid back and uh , not a lot of crime and a lot of locals are very uh and they're good to the tourists . You know they like to hang out and talk .

Uh , I think people , I think , if I do one , I think , and you see me , at that I think people will be like , wow , this is a place like a destination place to to do even a ham radio . uh , you know , vacation , you know . And speaking of vacations , that's what I'm buying .

And I said we're going to go and whenever I feel like going on a trip , we're just going to go for a trip and my goal is to hit all 50 States , activate all 50 States . I've only got 15 now , so I've got a ways to go . But she was like , does that mean we're going to Hawaii ?

I'm like , well , yeah , we're not going to drive there , but yeah , we'll go to Hawaii and Alaska .

I mean the stuff that you can see and and I like to meet people and and talk to locals and you know , just not do the , the so-called touristy stuff , but do the . You know the local fun stuff to see and stuff . You know there's a in saint john . There's uh , I was talking to a guy , uh , I went to this bar and uh , I was the only white guy there .

It was all the locals and I sit down and you know there's all the touristy . You know the the . You know the trap , the vacation bars , and this is like a . It's like a . It's like a wooden shack . It just says heineken everywhere . That's all it says is heineken must be sponsored by heineken .

So I sat down and I was talking to these guys and the guy goes , he goes . Have you hiked ? Did you go up to the tower yet ? And I said , no , I haven't . He goes . Oh , he goes , it's right there , you go , you go up that , up that hill and at the top there's a tower .

You can see St Croix , puerto Rico on a clear day , all the British Virgin Islands . He goes , it's great you got to go up there . He goes , no one knows about it , he goes . But uh , we you know the locals built a like a tower , like a platform tower , up there . So I was like , oh , we're gonna definitely do that .

So my , my wife and I , um , we got up at like because it's so hot and humid there , like you don't want to be hiking up a mountain , yeah , and then it's , it's hilly . Uh , we got up there . We got up at like five in the morning to get out there and we hiked it and I'll tell you if , by six , we were probably up there .

We got up at like five in the morning to get out there and we hiked it and I'll tell you , by six we were probably up there . It took us about an hour to get up there . I it looked like I just jumped in the ocean . I was sweating so bad , it was so hot and it wasn't even that hot , it was just so humid .

But you get up there and there's like a , it's like a wooden kind of fire tower platform , probably about 30 , 40 feet above the tree , like it goes above the tree , so you can see everything at the top and the view is just amazing .

I mean literally St Croix , which is the other Virgin Island that's not that near to St John , st Thomas is like right across the little way , it's like a 10 minute ferry ride , and the British Virgin Islands kind of inter , mean inter , they're all in the same clump , but then you can see Puerto Rico and it was , it was amazing .

I was like , wow , that's just awesome . So I would have known that unless I talked to the local guy .

So if maybe seven times , maybe five , whatever , at least it's all going to be in different spots , it's all going to be the same park and it's going to be like a whole new park because it's so , you know , right on the beach . You know there's , I mean , you can go up to the top of the mountain . The hills are .

You have to have four wheel drive there . I know it sounds crazy , like why do you need ? You have to rent the Jeep . So I rent a jeep on st thomas , I take the car ferry over and you have to have four-wheel drive because it's so steep these roads that if it rains you can't get up them . You need the four-wheel drive . It's crazy .

And , uh , they drive on the left side , but uh , and you're , you're steering wheels on the left side .

So it's not like you're in england when the steering wheel is on the right and you drive on the left right , yeah , but so when you're driving around and you go , if you go , like through the island , you're going up and down these hills and there's huge drops and like there's no guardrails , like you look , and you're like , oh , look at this shit , like if I

make a left , if I slide off this I'm dead , you know . And my wife and she's like always gets nervous she won't drive there . But , uh , but I've driven it so many times that it's it's like I know my way around . Now . It's not very big and , like I said , I don't .

It's an island that I've become very comfortable with because , uh , I just know what to do , where to do it . All the little ins and outs , you know where to go , where the best places to go , the best places to eat that kind of stuff .

So you've been there enough times yeah , I mean , I've probably been there 15 , 20 times probably , so it's like I almost feel like it's my second home . The idea is , when I retire , I got I have a possible to have a one bedroom for three weeks .

So I have a two bedroom for a week and a one bedroom for a week and I can combine them and make make it a one bedroom for three weeks , if that makes any sense . So the plan is retire right around like thanksgiving time .

Maybe right after thanksgiving go down there for three weeks and then come back and hopefully be living someplace warmer than up here in the in the winter let's see , or you could do , uh , you could do like my wife and I .

But uh , we were looking at prices for next year and the the cost difference from two weeks versus a month was so negligible it was , it was ridiculous . It was like for you know , an extra thousand dollars to get two weeks , you know Right .

And so , uh , yeah , so next May we're , we're going for a month and we're just gonna , we're just gonna be down in florida for a month , yeah yeah , it's like living down there , yeah , yeah , yeah , it's pretty cool , like when we're in saint john .

And so the first time I went there I was like taxiing in and out of town and then it's like , oh , like for 15 , we'll take you to this beach , you know . So the first time I was like , oh , that's , oh , the beach is beautiful . And then someone's like you got to rent the jeep and I rented the jeep and that was the end of it .

I was like yep , always renting a jeep , going all . I mean mean they've got a restaurant called the Lime Inn and it's a nice , good restaurant . But then they opened up a second restaurant over in Coral Bay . So in Cruise Bay there's Lime Inn . It's like a sit-down restaurant , you know , kind of nice .

And then they've got the Lime Out , which is in the middle of Coral Bay , and what I mean in the middle , I mean it's literally floating in the water and the only way to get to it is either by boat or swim out to it and they sell tacos and you sit in the water or in these like floating circle things and if you sit on those , they have these little

boats , like these little inflatable boats that they put your tacos on , they push them , it floats out to you , they float across to you and if you're sitting in the bar , like at the bar , like around the , where they make the tacos and stuff , you're sitting like waist deep in water .

So your seat is in the water and it's crystal clear like it's the caribbean and they're huge fish , because you know people are eating drop and stuff , and I mean huge and you know you see them , they're bumping into your legs and stuff . It's just awesome , awesome .

What a beautiful , beautiful wildlife uh preserve . And um , they've got some really neat little parking lots that you can pull off and you can set up right there in the parking lot . So you're , you're not , not , not , uh , doing anything bad to the wildlife or the the flora and fauna and whatever , um , but yeah , just a really , really nice park .

If you want to check that one out , yeah , that's awesome .

So , and I , my best friend from high school uh , he lives in I think it's called newport news yeah , yeah yeah , yeah , so , uh , he had moved there . He used to live in indiana they .

He moved there a couple years ago so he's been bugging me to go down there so I might have to take a trip down and see him well , I'll tell you while you're in newport news , take this short trip over to norfolk and and check out the naval base , because that is fantastic , right ?

than , uh , you know , a full service Walmart , as as far as size , two floors , there's a section that's all mattresses , there's a section that's all uniforms , there's a section that's all TVs and house stuff . I mean literally anything and everything that you could ever want , all at discounted prices is fantastic .

And you know she had a lot of friends growing up that were in the Marines and lived on military bases and you know she had a lot of friends growing up that were in the marines and lived on military bases and stuff . So she was telling him he goes , that's awesome . He goes , you can get stuff cheap there .

And I'm like , yeah , he goes , can you get fishing gear ? Like , yeah , you can , yeah you want , and then you never have . You never have to leave the base , it's all there for you and handsome handsome's actually got a decent uh post exchange .

You know , I know like a lot of people do it locally , but when you travel , especially if you're in the car or whatever and you you have access to kind of go off track a little bit , you go to places you may never have seen before .

You know , when I was working , I was down in florida , I went to some beautiful parks , like just amazing , like I was like , wow , this is absolutely incredible . Um , even in like mississippi and arkansas and louis , I mean just beautiful , like places I'd never really go right , like , like , like , like , why would I go here ?

I was in Florida once and there were freaking alligators everywhere at this park . Like there were signs like be aware of alligators , like before you walk down the trail kind of park , but they were everywhere . And when I did my first park in Mississippi , uh , it was getting .

I got off the plane , I went right to the park and , um , I activated it and I'm like in the thing , and I was actually talking to a guy in Mississippi and I'm looking at the lake and I'm like , oh , is that an alligator ? I'm like you guys have alligators here and he goes oh , yeah , we do .

I'm like you guys have alligators here and he goes well , yeah , we do . I'm like , holy shit , there's people like swimming in like across the way . There was like a campground and these guys are like swimming with alligators . And then Eric , I talked to Eric and he goes dude , just hang around for the . He goes hang around for another hour .

You know you can get the late shift in . I'm like are you freaking , kidding me ? I go , it's getting dark here and there's alligators everywhere . I'm like I'm in this , like swampy little inlet , like surrounded by marsh . I'm like , no , not staying here .

Well , I'm glad that I'm not the only one anyways that , uh , you know , while the vacation is for everybody else , really right , we do still find the time to have some fun for ourselves and play radio , um , and you're 100 right , and and if you're driving somewhere and you can , you can stop on the , the byways and the and the , the offbeat and path .

You , you find some amazing places , um , the savannah national wildlife refuge , which isn't in savannah at all , uh , but it spans georgia and south carolina and it's it's such a huge park and it's beautiful . Uh , you know , definitely one of those places that had I not taken a detour specifically to go to that park , I would have never seen it .

But I think you miss out on a lot of other things . And I think , like you said , driving like I , I'm really excited about this sprinter van thing at retirement because I it's just like I'm going to wake up one day . I'm like you know what , let's go to . Let go to north carolina for the week and just just cop it and go .

You know you don't have every if you , if you don't have a job and you don't have much responsibilities , right , you can just do that , yeah and uh , and just kind of get lost in it . Maybe you're gone for a week , maybe you're gone for a month , maybe you're gone for three days .

But you know you go with what you feel and it just gives you the open range to do whatever you want and see wherever you want to go .

There was like a tent that kind of came out on a ladder , um , but yeah , I mean it was like it is . I forget what , the what the youtube channel . It was pretty cool .

I'm like , well , if a girl can sleep in a jeep wrangler , which is what I drive for a couple years , I think my wife and I could handle a sprinter van now just just turn your jeep wrangler into an overlanding vehicle and right , you're all set just just uh , bring one of those those uh tow along like mini kit , mini , uh , what do they call those ?

those like mini trailers that you can basically sleep in and the kitchen's like on the outside .

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