N5NTG | 
10 8th, 2018| 
Folks,
Here is my “Rambling Ride Report” for the weekend [editor: Valero BikeMS Ride to the River on October 6-7th, 2018]. Please feel free to publish, conceal, distribute, fold, spindle, or mutilate as you see fit.
Yours,
Andy
KE5PWX
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10/08/2018
2018 MS Ride to the River: A Backseat Ham Reports.
Day 1: Saturday
At about 03:00 Saturday morning, I dragged my reluctant backside out of a nice warm bed, loaded some radio equipment, tools, and a few personal items into “Smart Car 42,” and set out for Rolling Oaks mall on the extreme Northeast side of San Antonio, Texas. If you asked me why, I’d have to say it’s complected. Sure, my company encourages me to do volunteer stuff. US Bank even matches cash donations to the organization at my hourly rate for events I participate in, but the biggest part is that my late father-in-law was a MS victim—a paraplegic confined to a wheelchair for half of his adult life—and that, and his daughter, my wife, was diagnosed with MS shortly after we were married 25 years ago. I’d like to say that those who participate in these events exemplify the indomitable spirits of my wife and her dad—accept, adapt, adjust, double-down, overcome—rinse, and repeat.
First thing Saturday, I discovered that while I know exactly where the mall is in the daytime, I have no idea where it is at 04:00 in the morning. Fortunately I was able to illustrate one of the many valid reasons for having a ham radio in your car. My dedicated GPS was not acting anything like ‘dedicated’, and it seemed like it would be more expedient to ask for directions than to fool with getting it on my phone; I posed my quandary to the good folks who happened to be monitoring the AARO repeater at that hour, and, Bob’s your uncle, I had the name and exit number about two minutes before I needed it.
