Jan 1st, 2025 activation of US-1596 The Return to "Black Hills Forest"

I wasn&rsquo;t intending to activate a park today. Being New Years Day, I woke up pretty late. I saw KE8UTX and KE8QJV from the Black Swamp ARC pop up on my HamAlert, so I brewed some coffee and hunted them. The 20m band was really iffy at 18:50Z in MD. I can usually hear Ohio pretty well from Maryland, but they gave me a 53. As I was sipping my coffee, I wondered if there was an award for working…