Very little sunshine to be seen today but at least it’s not raining. More sun for Monday but then rain returns. And possibly a half inch of rain for Juneteenth but fairly mild. I’ll have to consider my weekend plans as weekend gets closer, though Friday through Sunday looks warm and sunny but creek levels will be high.

Yesterday I was so ambitious until I wasn’t. Got up, cooked down the beans had breakfast, showered. And then I just collapsed with low-energy. I thought I had gotten enough sleep the previous night but I hadn’t. Truth is I’m not sure it’s Lyme disease as much as it’s a lack of sleep. The nicer weather has me staying out later most nights, then when I ride up, have a bite to eat and are still wound up a bit, I end up watching a video on my phone, Of course the web advertisers, thanks to my Mobile Advertising ID and clicking or making a stupid comment on some cancer advertisers ad are so sure I got cancer. Probably from all that weed and plastic I’ve burnt up in woods over the years. I ended up taking a nap through mid-day,  as the skies poured more most of the morning, and then it was cloudy and kind of cold. So no camping last night.

I did spend much of the afternoon reading Max Fraiser’s Hillbilly Highway well into night down at the Town Park. I ended up walking down there as I get tired of riding everywhere, even though my bike is working fine but my bike headlight isn’t charging and I lost the second one I had up in the Adirondacks back in April. So I ordered two more of them, though it means in the mean time I have to be careful about sunset if I’m going out to Five Rivers or the Town Park. Should arrive this week, though maybe not before the Juneteenth Weekend. Hillbilly Highway is fascinating, it’s the story of the migration two and from Appalachia to the factories in Midwest especially the great auto works in Indiana and Michigan in the 1930s through 1960s. The factories sought out cheap work, but what they got was a lot a conflict and new culture both good and bad. Cities of pigs and brothels as they say. Pigs are great but they can be smelly.

Thing that sucks about Juneteenth is it looks like more rain, and then fairly cool and cloudy up north on Friday. I am thinking maybe I don’t head up to the Potholers on Juneteenth but instead skip taking off Friday, or only take part of the day off if I want to get bacon and then go up after work and stay on Monday, when the heat wave is expected to push in. Creek levels are going to be mad high, which isn’t great for floating  nor cooling off on the Potholers with all the rain. Things will drop though by Saturday I’m thinking if I go up after work on Friday. The thing is the following Friday I was planning to take off, because I have my dentist appointment at 11 AM and thought I could work from home in the morning, and then from there, head up to the wilderness. Maybe Vermont or Schoharie that weekend, but it depends on the weather. I really was looking forward to four solid days up at camp, hopefully nice and warm and sunny. Gas up my truck today at $3 a gallon but I doubt those prices will remain around long, with the Middle East going to all shit. Trump can demand lower gas prices and yell drill-baby-drill but there is no guarantee such things are even likely to work.

I thought about for a while truck camping up at Rensselearville State Forest but in the summer there is no guarantee that the campsite will be avaliable especially on a Saturday, and it was cool and gray yesterday. Certainly wouldn”t have been good for hammock camping but I wanted to have a fire. It was decent at the park last night. This morning I stocked up on groceries. $15 for a 100-pack of nitrile which seemed pricy but they’ ll last for a while. I was concerned that nitrile produces cyanide when thrown way and burnt, but that’s not the truth with nitrile butanate and I’m sure there are other things that produce trace amounts of cyanide I’ve burnt over the years. Dairies incinerate lots of them with farm trash. Just stay up wind and hopefully they won’t stink not that I expect to use that many of them, just an occasional one when working on bike with the gears or chain, so my hands don’ t get that tough to remove bike chain grease all of them.

I was surprisingly low on groceries, and I thought about just getting a few maintance items like milk and bananas to keep the panty full until I could do a bigger shop on Wednesday in prep for the Juneteenth Weekend camping trip but with the weather it looks like I might just shop on Juneteenth for the weekend, work Friday and head up north on after work and enjoy the sun then. I guess I don’t have to leave early and I don’t have to get more bacon at For the Love of Bacon – indeed I actually have some left over from the Memorial Day Weekend trip but it’s all part of the experience. For somebody who doesn’t eat processed food I sure do like my bacon up at camp, cooked down with lots of spinach, onions and other goodies.

I was thinking about going down to Hannacroix Preserve and also the Coeymans Creek WMA but I’m leaning more towards Partridge Run and hiking some of the roads this afternoon. I both want to drive to test out my truck and be a confidence building activity, as I’m still filled with driving and auto anxiety, and also get out into the country. Partridge Run is certainly much more country. Plus, it will be quieter up there, much less likely to run into other people. I hate the road noise of the Thruway at both of the prior places, plus Berne and Westerlo are so much more rural. Maybe I should check out some land and houses that up for sale, but I still don’t want to build in New York nor do I want a long commute while I’m still working in the city. Gas is still cheap currently. And maybe I can check out that farm with the burn barrel out back that still burns shit. Don’t tell a liberal that.