Good evening! It’s been a long and at sometimes very wet day here in Syracuse. Just lots of heavy rain, some very heavy bands too. But for now the rain has stopped and we have mostly cloudy and 61 degrees in North Syracuse. ☁ Mild weather is expected to a last a few more hours, but it won’t be an all night thing. There is a west breeze at 9 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 56 degrees. The skies will clear Saturday around 11 pm.

Not a terrible today, but also quite busy and rainy at times. I did get for a nice little walk out along North Main Street in North Syracuse, 🚶 in the early morning, but most of the day was spent in the office. Now I am super tired, I didn’t get enough sleep last night. 😴 Stayed up late, and had to get up early for work. I had a nice “glass of wine” 🍷in a red solo cup around 6:30 PM tonight, I think I may have been a little buzzed driving home at, but it wasn’t really more then a 1/4th of the cup but on an empty stomach. Like most days, I had a late lunch. I usually end up skipping dinner, because I get tired of eating out or getting food out of a can 🥫  — or whatever I keep cool in the beverage cooler and heat with my personal microwave which they have in the office.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly after 5am. Cloudy ☁, with a low of 50 degrees at 5am. Nine degrees above normal. West wind around 10 mph, with gusts as high as 20 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2017, we had light rain in the evening, remaining overcast into the early morning. It got down to 42 degrees. The record low of 22 occurred back in 1964.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent Moon 🌒 with 11% illuminated. The moon will rise at 10:40 am. The First Quarter Moon is on Monday night with a chance of showers. The Hunter Moon 🌝 is on Tuesday, October 23rd. The sun will rise at 7:14 am with the first light at 6:45 am, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 12 hours and 47 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have a chance of showers, mainly after 9am. Cloudy , with a high of 52 degrees at 2pm. Seven degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 46 at 6am. West wind 11 to 15 mph, with gusts as high as 25 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. The high last year was 65 degrees. The record high of 85 was set in 1954. There was a dusting of snow in 1904.❄

I am glad that I’ve made it halfway to Election Day, well actually that starts tomorrow at Day 25. 🗳 By the end of the day, I was really fried. Some ways though, this is always the toughest week or two, just because it feels like it will never come to an end. But alas, November really is just around the corner, I will do what needs to get done, and things will hopefully work out just fine. I am definitely looking forward to that November trip, each day it creep closer. Those long nights in the wilderness will be great — and if it’s not too cold or wet — I’m hoping for a nice night watching the stars from Foster Pond in the Finger Lakes National Forest.🌠 That never happened this summer, as it was too wet and cloudy most of the week I was there. Not to mention the many other adventures I’m looking forward to. Plus all those great camp meals to look forward to, the fires, the nice nights in the wilderness.

The headlights now re-aimed, make night driving so much easier. 💡 Maybe I’ll have to go a bit higher for rural road driving, but I really like how much more light I have on the road now, and how it seems to cut down on the glare from other vehicles. I’m sure I’m making other drivers happier, I’ve not seen anybody blink me since I made the adjustment. One of these nights I got to try some rural road driving at higher speeds to see if I’m running out past the low beams while driving — although for the extra light on the road, and still having my high beams, it’s probably worth having them pretty low.

I do swear though I notice at times that the suspension is riding a bit rougher, especially when I turn hard — maybe the shocks are wearing down a bit — but things are still relatively level,  and I’ve not heard any noises. 📎 I get some wheel hop and flex in the tires when turning hard, but that’s to be expected with the big tires. The other day I drove home with the windows down and radio off to confirm I had no issues because ever since the spring I’ve though something could be wrong. I don’t really care that much about breaking down out here, but I do worry in the back of my head that I don’t want any mechanical problems to impact my November Road Trip that I’ve been looking forward to going on for months now. Big Red wouldn’t be as much fun if I didn’t have something to worry about on it constantly. But my worry comes from back when I had that old Ford Ranger which wasn’t always the most reliable. Then again my neighbor who I sold the Ford Ranger to seven years, still has it on the road, but then again, he never really leaves town.

I decided to order two Yeeco® Digital Multimeter and shunts from China, to provide me with more information about the power being produced from my solar panel and how much power i am pulling off my accessory battery. I could get them from E-Bay but I figured I’m not going to have a chance to wire them up until later at any rate. I decided I did not want an inline meter, because I was concerned about line-drop from too small of wires, and the fact that many of the inline meters tend not to be well built. 📟

In contrast, a shunt will be quite reliable, and if the meter were to die, I could just replace it — and I can mount the meter wherever I want, like back in the truck cap. I might wire up both shunts — one between the solar controller and ground, and one between the battery and ground, but only use one meter, and put one of the two-way switches to switch between the two. 🔌 This way I can monitor either the current flowing from the battery or the current flowing from the solar panel. The gauges show voltage, amperage, wattage, and power consumed/produced. I may need some more crimp connectors but they aren’t hard to get a hold off. I am thinking I could use the non-function Ethernet cable I have (after testing which strands are broken). Before my November Road Trip I would like to at least have the shunt between the solar panel wired, although I guess I could quite easily do both at the same time.

Tomorrow if the weather doesn’t turn out to be a wash out, and it’s not too busy, I may try to get down to Green Lakes State Park for a while in the afternoon tomorrow. 🏞 Believe it or not, despite one day hiking in the open area that’s the bird sanctuary, I’ve yet to spend any time down at the lakes proper, hiking around them. They should be getting a lot of autumn color at this point I’m thinking. They are very pretty on a nice day. Well Sunday morning might be reasonably nice hiking down there. I’ll have to think about it again. It’s going to be cool but maybe fairly clear.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. 😕 Saturday, showers, mainly before 5pm. High near 48. West wind around 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Not exactly a real nice. Cold and wet! Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 56. Typical average high for the weekend is 61 degrees.

In four weeks on November 8 the sun will be setting at 4:47 pm (Standard Time),🌄 which is one hour, 40 minutes and 24 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 47 and 26 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 51 and 34 degrees. The record high of 75 degrees was set back in 1975. It will be much colder by the time my November Road Trip gets underway, but I enjoy the change of the season and I will be glad once the election comes and goes.

Looking ahead, November 🥧 is in 3 weeks, Veterans Day (Sunday) 🇺🇸 is a month away and Thanksgiving 🦃 is in 6 weeks.