Good evening as the long weekend comes to it’s logical conclusion. Currently 38 degrees and partly cloudy. The nearly full moon is quite pretty tonight. Looking for a low around 29 degrees, the first freezing temperature in a while. It will remain below freezing through Tuesday.

Right now the storm forecast for Monday Evening into Tuesday is calling for more ice and rain then snow. Monday will be sunny and a seasonable 30 degrees for a high. That’s normal for late December, despite recent warm weather. Tuesday night the storm comes in. It would start out as snow, turn to ice for a miserable Tuesday morning commute then be rain by afternoon. This is certainly still subject to change and it may be an all rain event or less likely, an all snow event.

Last night was nice in the woods, not too cold and the rain held off until 10 PM which allowed me to take down most of my camping gear and lights before heading to bed, so nothing that would need drying out got wet. I wanted to get a quick start in the morning, in case it was pouring rain when I awoke.

It was a nice campfire although the wood I gathered in the woods was damp and at times the fire was pokey. But it was a nice evening, listening to a Prairie Home Companion and then some podcasts until a quarter before 10. Took down as much of camp as possible and retired to the back of the truck. The rain started  just as I killed the latern for the night.

It was nice in the truck. Not a cold evening, so I didn’t really miss not having the heated tent. Camping in the truck is nice on rainy nights because your up high and it was plenty dry. It never poured last night, just a steady refreshing sound of rain on the truck cap. By morning the rain had stopped. I had already drained the fuel out of my camp stove, so I skipped making coffee and picked up some at McDonald’s in Richfield Springs. Tearing down camp was easy, as everything was already down, so all I had to do was load the food box and cooler from the front of truck to the back and fold up my folding table and load things like the camp grill and buckets.

I had trouble bleeding out the propane lines with just the lantern attached – it burns too little propane to easily clean out the lines and kept burning for 3 minutes after I switched the tank off and an additional 30 seconds after I unplugged the line from the tank! With the heater connected, the lines bleed out in like 10 seconds.

The drive home was rainy and foggy at times. The Cherry Valley Bypass was particularly bad for fog. I need to replace my windshield wiper on the driver side or at least clean the blade good. It was tough seeing out the windshield at times, especially with the heavy rain. But I made it home safely.

Unpacked my camping gear and made breakfast. Spent some time researching propane camping stoves. Relaxed a bit because I’m still recovering from my cold. Went to my parent’s house for Sunday Dinner. Did my wash, put my clothes away. Went grocery shopping. Lots of rainy day tasks.

I’m tired and heading to bed now. Good night.