The Huge Huntsville Hamfest

The Huntsville Hamfest, August 21, Day  44
 
This event turned out to be much larger than we anticipated. Our longtime advertiser, Robby Spears owns Giga Parts and let us camp behind his store.  Giga Parts had the largest, busiest booth at the show so we  hung the QRZ.com  banner and opened for business.  I was schmoozing, answering questions and solving problems for  QRZ subscribers.  Fred met with current and prospective advertisers and shopped....a lot.  He bought a telescoping pole, his second, which was a big thing judging by the oohs and aahs from the guys in the booth. I admit, I still don't get it. Evidently its a ham radio antenna thingy. 

It poured rain and was still steamy when we took off that night to get a little road under the tires before we retired in a rest stop somewhere in Alabama...I don't know where.  I do know that sometime during the night, something took the whole QRZ site down. I awoke to find an ashen Fred frantically trying to figure out what caused the failure.  He had planned an unusually hard day and a half of driving to get to Clearwater, Florida by Sunday. He was scheduled to speak to the Tampa Amateur Radio Club on Monday night.  We had to stop several times during the day to log in to the site and talk to the network engineers in Phoenix so we only got as far as Dothan, Alabama.  At one point, it looked as if Fred was going to park  me and the bus in Florida and fly home to solve the problem.  Thank goodness for his experience at Sun Microsystems managing remote servers.  He supervised long distance and was able to configure a temporary fix so he didn't have to abandon me.  The temporary fix is still holding and we are still married. Fred ordered some new equipment online, had it delivered to the house and Peter delivered it to the network engineers in downtown Phoenix. 

Some of you know Peter and some don't.  He is our friend and the keyboardist in Desert Voodoo.   He  has moved into our house while we are on the road and has assumed many of our day to day duties. He and Prudence, his cat, are keeping the dogs fed and out of trouble, doing our banking, sorting mail, running to the post office, watering plants, spa and pool duties and the ever necessary poop patrol. I guess you could say we now have an English butler.  We think we'll keep him when we get home.  Our grand adventure could not have happened without his contribution.  Peter also has an assistant; our neighbor, Deb Fisher.  She has been busy walking our dogs, driving them to the beauty parlor, fixing sprinklers, cleaning up the dead plants and housing Peter and Prudence when they lock themselves out of the house. Jaime came to their rescue with her key. As they say...it takes a village.

Road signs that made us smile:     Little Pecker's Wing House
                    Cuckold Landing
                    Fancy Gap

Animals spotted in the wild, in flea markets and roadside:  Lots and lots of possums who we are sure were NOT playing possum, alpaca, turtle, swan, geese, egret, gray and brown pelican, koi, frog, antelope, fox, armadillo, skunk (duh), seagulls, dog, raccoon, cat, chickens, deer, squirrel, rabbit, badger, macaw, parrot, parakeet, crow, stork, osprey, horses, cows, mountain goats, big horn sheep, lizards, many fish of indeterminate type, porpoise, porcupine and hundreds of frigates.  We were told that the frigates flew in and swarmed on an island in near the shore in Florida to escape Hurricane Earl.
To see what a BIG hamfest looks like, Click Here...

Up next.....Florida!
From the road
-robin