Good morning! Happy Sunday. Exactly one week of vacation left. Six weeks to the last Sunset Before 7:30 PM 🌆. Autumn is coming, but first I should enjoy summer. Sunny and nice and 75 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. 🌞There is a north-northwest breeze at 15 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 70 degrees. With the breeze, you don’t really feel the humidity, laying back in the hammock.

Today will have a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny ☀, with a high of 86 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 71 at 11am. Northwest wind 5 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 84 degrees. The record high of 101 was set in 1930.

On this day in 1925, Dayton, Tennessee high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100. 🙊 Darn criminals ruining our country. 👮 The judge incorrectly set the fine, rather then letting the jury do it, so his conviction was overturned on appeal. The law would remain on the books until it was repealed 1967. Also in 1983, the world’s lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F). ❄They should build a pipe and send it up north to cool off people efficiently. Probably doesn’t follow the laws of thermodynamics.

The sun will set at 8:38 pm with dusk around 9:10 pm, which is 50 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 77 degrees. The dew point will be 65 degrees. There will be a north-northwest breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 48 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 45 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 65 degrees at 5am. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 67 at 6pm. West wind 3 to 7 mph. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It became sticky as the night progressed. It got down to 64 degrees. The record low of 47 occurred back in 1970.

So far summer vacation is going fairly well, 🏊 although I was very disappointed that the swim beach at Cayuga Lake at Taughannock Falls was closed due blue green algea pollution. First time that’s happened while I’ve been coming here in the summer. I ended up going to Robert Treman State Park and swimming in Enfield Glen. It turned out to be a nice afternoon with lots of sun and despite traffic delays getting in past the park gates. It’s obnoxious that they charge park fees in New York. 67 degrees in the water which is remarkably warm for Enfield Glen.

I also stopped at Montezuma for a while but it was incredibly hot. 🐦 There was some wildlife, especially butterflies but it was oppressively hot after coming out of my well air conditioning truck. Plus I was looking forward to the beach. The beach closure was such a disappointment.

But the flip side is I did get the campsite I really like on Chicken Coop Road 🐥 so I’m here through Wednesday morning. I set up a tent for my surplus gear and dirty clothes, ⛺ and the flags, hammock and table. I set up camp relatively slowly and it got dark fairly early as some clouds pushed in.

I laid back in the hammock until quarter to ten, and then went for a walk to Foster Pond 🐸 to watch the moon rise 🎑. I figured it would be cool to watch the moon rise fifty years after the moon landing. Unfortunately I waited until 11:20, but it didn’t rise until later. I ended up walking back to camp 🚶after which it rose. But it was buggy and I was worried 😯 about getting caught in a thunderstorm. ⚡ That was kind of obnoxious. But it was a nice night back at Foster Pond with lots of fireflies 🐝 and stars ✨ with flashes of lightning ⚡ in the distance.

I got back to camp, cracked open another beer 🍻 and had a small fire 🔥 mostly to burn up the garbage and just watch the flames. I got to stop throwing the sweet corn husks and cobs on the other camp trash, 🌽 they don’t burn well. What was supposed to be nice fire a stinky mess of smoldering plastic and food waste. Yuck. Maybe I should have built a hotter fire 🔥 with more wood. Instead going forward I’ll toss the husks and food waste 🍲 in the bucket shitter 💩 and bury them in the woods when I break camp. They’ll rot away pretty good. I know when I own my off-grid home, 🏡 I’ll definitely want to do lots of composting – at least mixing the food waste with animal manure rather than burning it with the trash in the pit. Plus rather then becoming air pollution it will become fertilizer. 🌺

I had a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage this morning 🍳, and I’ve been sitting in the hammock enjoying the breeze. I got some firewood but I should grab some more before I head out to swimming in Watkins Glen 🏊. I fear 😱 the nice weather may not last all day so I probably should think about heading out, maybe around noon. 👍I’m on vacation so I’m in no rush. That said, tomorrow doesn’t look great so I’ll probably hang out in camp. Going to be cool and gray tomorrow, I might stay close to camp, instead just hiking around in the National Forest. Also going to get something good at the Watkins Glen Dairy bar.

I’m planning to stay in the Finger Lakes through Wednesday morning then will head to Allegany County on Wednesday. Thursday I might either go up to Letchworth State Park or maybe Cattaraugus County and then the Allegheny National Forest. ⛺ While I have a camping permit for the Tioga State Forest in Penna for three nights, I doubt I’ll stay more than two.

One month 📅 from now the State Fair Opens 🎡 when the sun will be setting at 7:59 pm with dusk at 8:28 pm. The average high temperature is 80 degrees.