I think the best days I ever had was as a novice.  With crystal operation, 
you often met the same novices multiple times.  I had been given a globe 
chief 90a as a Bar present that summer.  It came with 6 crystals.  I had an 
sx71 that I had been listening to constantly for a year and a half.  I got 
the magic piece of paper with WA9TOP written on it on December 03 1996.  My 
first contact was wn0ovc from Missouri at 2-30 A.M.  Some things don't 
change I guess.  It turned out that my 80 antenna didn't work well, so I 
couldn't get through when the frequencies were busy, which was most of the 
time after dark.  The 40 meter doublet worked fine, when the wind didn't 
break the twinlead.  The other station I used was a Heath Kit twoer.  1 
crystal about 400 khz above everybody else, a regenerative receiver, and a 
booming 5 watts.  Talked to a guy 7 miles away and was absolutely amazed, I 
still am considering what I was running.
California, texas, maine, Madison and Milwaukee, it was all amazing and 
magical.  I never worked a DX station as a novice, but to keep the magic, 
none was needed.