Good morning! What day is it? 🐫 of course. Next Wednesday is Independence Day 🇺🇸. Cloudy and 65 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁There is a south breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 57 degrees. A bit sticky as the rain approaches from the west. But the rain is important to get before we get the really hot weather.

I got up early enough to catch the express bus to work. 🚌It’s a much nicer commute than the local but it does require me to be moving at a decently fast pace getting ready. The walk down is good way to kick off the day if it’s not too hot out which it rarely is before nine o’clock. 🏃I always like the part going over flyover ramp to the Empire State Plaza.🚊 Oil train facility is totally empty today, it looks like they are working on the tracks.

Today will have a chance of showers, mainly after 1pm. Mostly cloudy ☁, with a high of 75 degrees at 1pm. Six degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 59 at 4pm. South wind 7 to 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. I decided against bringing a rain coat or umbrella. I think that will prove to be a correct decision. ☔A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. The high last year was 71 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1941.

The sun will set at 8:37 pm with dusk around 9:12 pm, which is one second earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain showers ☁ and 67 degrees. The dew point will be 59 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 17 minutes of daytime, an increase of 26 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have showers, with thunderstorms also possible after midnight. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. ☔ Low of 65 degrees at 10pm. Five degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 65 at 6am. 🏖 South wind around 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between a half and three quarters of an inch possible. In 2017, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 52 degrees. The record low of 43 occurred back in 1970.

On this day in 1985, U.S. Route 66 is officially removed from the United States Highway System. You could no longer get you’re kicks on Route 66 because everybody was taking I-40 and I-44 through the heartland of America.⛲

So I am probably going to go shopping tonight, or maybe tomorrow to pack for camping. I am not planning on leaving until early Friday morning,🌄 but I basically want to have everything packed prior to the morning, except for the coolers. Leaving on Friday morning means the ice will last somewhat longer, and I won’t be driving up in the rain or setting up in the woods while wet. Then I will only have three nights in one campsite, and will be able to avoid having to move the campsite mid-weekend to comply with the silly state regulations. It will be a nice drive up there early Friday morning, with probably only light traffic — heading out of the city I will going the opposite direction of traffic.🚦

I don’t expect to do much during the long weekend, besides cool down in the potholers, maybe a short early morning hike with some early morning fishing, and spend half the night awake with a book or podcasts. 🏕 But I’m ready for a long weekend, quiet, away from the heat. It will be hot when I get home, but I’m fine with that. I still have yet to decide if I will bring my kayak 🚣, it might be too hot to do much paddling and I would have to keep it off my truck to use the solar panel. But I expect it mostly to just be hot, spending late nights up taking advantage of the cooler weather at night. 🌌

I will have to go back to work on Tuesday and Friday, although I have Independence Day and the day off as holidays. Not sure what I will do those days, a lot depends on the weather. I think it will be continued hot, and I might consider going to out to Schoharie County for an overnight trip and to swim in Mine Kill Pool. Or maybe not. I still want to wire up that two-way switch so I can use the solar panel to charge the starting battery. After studying my drawing some more, I realized I won’t need a diode for it work, after all, although I do think I will add an indicator LED light so I know what position the switch is in by a quickly looking down. I might use

As previously noted, next Wednesday is Independence Day 🇺🇸 when the sun will be setting at 8:36 pm with dusk at 9:10 pm. On that day in 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies and temperatures between 82 and 56 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 82 degrees. We hit a record high of 104 back in 1911. A few years before my time although who knows this year with the hot and humid weather.