Driving back from Albany to Plattsburgh, I often would stop and explore the back roads, including heading into the agricultural lands of northern Adirondacks, like this farm land just outside of Reber.
I think I’ll drive my big jacked up truck to the office. It’s fine, I want to get more olive oil, hot sauce, maple syrup before the holiday weekend. And maybe bring my laptop computer home. Tomorrow the office is going to be closed through the weekend for the Thanksgiving holiday, I was surprised they decided to give us off yet another day this month.
Cold and dark out this time of year, but once I eventually got home last night on the yokel local bus 🚍, you know the one that stops every six feet and has the creepy transvestites and people with tattoos and needle marks, or so we like to pretend. 👹 Honestly, I’ve kind of gotten to like smelling the weed, though the stuff the people in ghetto smoke is such crap but I like girly smelling sweet stuff that makes me giggle up in wilderness on my mountain bike. Had some more of that delicious acorn squash last night, 🎃 and some of my homemade bread dipped in balsamic vinger and then some cranberries, oatmeal, cinnamon and Stevia blended up for desert. Breakfast with cornmeal pancakes with shredded carrots, onions, and spinach and too much Stevia so it was super sweet. But good. 😋
Been doing more listening to audiobooks and reading, 📙 most of the way through Ted Conover’s Cheap Land Colorado – Off Griders at America’s Edge. I like that book maybe because it reminds me somewhat of the trailer trash kind of neighborhood I grew up in or because everybody who lives on their 5-acres in Colorado prairies have burn barrels, trash pits, make their own electricity, chop their own wood and have goats. 🐐🪓 Maybe it’s the kerosene and hog shit I can smell through the book. I should finish up that book today. Tomorrow I’ll have to finish up the book I have out with Allen Ginsberg poems and Mark Sundeen’s The Unsettlers, which is kind of a similar vein. Then I got to find books to get out on Hoopla to read when I head up to camp, as they’ll work well if properly downloaded even in BFE Adirondacks where their is no cell service.
I was going to ride in this morning, 🚂 so I could stop and take some pictures of the Holiday Train at the Albany Oil Train depot, what the frack, but whatever. I think it goes past the Starship office mid-morning, maybe if I run out when I hear the train whistle I can watch it as it crosses Erie Boulevard, not that I really care that much, it’s the same old EMD locomotive and box car that goes by every day, but this time with some Christmas lights strung up on it. 🎅 Probably neater looking when you see it at night when the rusty old locomotive and box cars can’t be seen – only the lights.
Tomorrow I will probably stay home, read and if I bring my laptop home, 🖥️ maybe take it down to the library to play, and I might inevitably end up putting a hour or so of work on my holiday off, because that’s how such things go.
Not totally sure where or for how long I”m heading north on Friday. 🏕️ It’s still rifle season up north, 🎄 but it’s winding down with the holiday season winding up and over a month past since the start for NZ big game. 🦌 East Branch, Lake Durant, and Boreas River remain on the short list. Lake Durant is slightly higher on the list, I think it could be fun to ride around Blue Mountain Lake and maybe hike the Blue Mountain Lake Firetower. 🔥 Or maybe hike around Warrensburg on one of the peaks around Lake George, ⛰️ then camp on East Branch. But also Boreas River intrigues me, maybe going up to Camp Santoni and riding back to Newcomb Lake on my mountain bike.
I haven’t decided if I will stay up north through Monday, I am little bit worried about snow come Sunday into Monday, and how cold it will be. ☃️ Maybe I’ll take Monday off just to be safe. I still have quite a bit of time, and with so many holiday off in December I should still have plenty of opportunities to head up to the wilderness, have fires, 🎇 and enjoy all the wilderness has to offer in the snow even if I didn’t ultimately decide to get skis. 🎿 I guess if I was really desperate for skis I could look on Craig’s List or even buy retail, but I don’t know, it seems like winter is so short, and I’d rather stay home, save gas and money during the winter months and just read and learn. 🚧 This month in particular, I’m really interested in learning more about building science – metal roofs, electrical codes, and just more of the building process. Not necessarily about sustainable building or even suburban house building, but what works and doesn’t work in buildings, and what actually is long lasting and what is quickly used up garbage you regularly replace on a typical suburbanite house like the asphalt shingles and vinyl siding.
