We left Andra's apartment complex at 7:30am Saturday April 7th. I borrowed my parents tent trailer in order to have enough room for all our gear. I mounted an 8ft+ tall 40-meter antenna on the roof and guyed it down with string. The plan was to stay in contact with my dad and other local hams while enjoying the great outdoors. We also enjoyed watching other motorists as their jaws dropped. Although we probably caused a few neck injuries no auto accidents were apparent.
Here is the crew before we left. As you can see it had been raining. In fact, it rained on us off and on as we made our way to the coast. Our first stop was Bill & Kathy's restaurant in Dunigan for breakfast (a traditional stop whenever you go to Fort Bragg). After everyone was fed we continued on towards HWY 20. As we left the restaurant parking lot I made the first contact with my dad on the radio. We agreed to look for each other at the top of every hour. Being too close together for good skywave propagation we had mutually weak signals over ground wave.
Here we've reached the Foster's Freeze in Willits, CA where we stopped for lunch. Amanda and Andra wait for their food as Bailey tries her Linda Blair imitation.