Heading up to camp mid-morning, going to spend out in the wilderness through Saturday, when I will come back home. Expecting a few inches of snow on Friday, I figure that will make for a pretty afternoon and evening. Not a lot of snow where I’m going but it should be cold enough that it won’t be all sloppy.

Nice morning around the freezing point this morning. ☀️ Looking forward to getting away for a few days leading up to Christmas. Then back to work on Monday and Tuesday, Christmas Eve. Then I’m off through January 2nd, when it’s back to the winter grind in the office. But by mid month, there will be enough daylight in the evening that at least I won’t be riding back to the express bus 🚍 in darkness, and by President Day, I’ll be able to ride all the way home, assuming the rail trail is free of snow and ice.

Getting packed this morning, slowly, as I’m not in that much of a rush to get out in the woods but I need time to get set up and gather wood 🪵 before dark. Plus I’d rather be at camp around noontime so I can have a nice lunch, maybe ride or read during the afternoon and listen some podcasts. 🎧 Have some time before dark, which will come much too early this time of year. I remain too much of a sugar fein, I had chocolate pancakes this morning, 🥞 I bought a big container of pure baking coca at the store this week. Coca itself doesn’t have a lot of sugar and fat, and I used an egg and a little bit of olive oil and Stevia to give it that chocholately goodness with the fats and sugars.

It should be good to camp. 🏕️ Fully expect it to be cold, but I’m looking forward to the snow tomorrow –  the road I’m camping on will be plowed – and it should be pretty watching the fresh falling snow. ☃️ They are talking about 2-4 inches of snow, which is nice but not so much to deal with at camp. I’m probably going to sleep in the truck cap, so I’m not worried about digging the tent out of the snow. Then just kind of relaxing, catching up on my reading. 📖 Bringing my bike, not sure how much I will ride, depends on how deep the snow is up there, though I’m not expecting more then a few inches. Also it will depend on how windy and cool its up there at camp.

Truth was I didn’t sleep that great last night, 🌃 probably way too much caffeine and sugar. ☕ 🍪 They had a lunch in at work yesterday, with too much sugary cookies that deserved a lot of coffee to dip it in. Plus it was another busy day at work, I was trying to get caught up before I took off the rest of the week. I realized I coded a bunch of records incorrectly, so I had to fix them. 🖥️ It’s fine, I can run the job at night next week nohup and the server will fix them as I sleep. 😴

Been thinking about the new year. 💵 I really should look more at finding a fee-based advisor to go over my investments. I do worry about paying a lot of money and not getting something worthwhile in return, or pushed into a bad investment. Trust but verify. I need to read up more about such things, 📚 and while I’m pretty happy with mostly simple index-based investing, I often find it hard to fully understand the tax ramifications of my decisions. Maybe I’m stubborn, but I’m not like some – here’s my money – go invest it and if it looks like I’m getting some return never question it. Maybe it’s like my experiences with the mental health treatment – they promise you so much but the truth is they often don’t have any answers beyond what you already know. Still, I do value the ideas of experts in the field.

It’s great to spend time out in the wilderness, 🎄 but I still want some point to have a place to call home that isn’t a dumpy apartment in the suburbs. But I don’t know. That’s why I spend so much time and money investing and saving for the future. So these trips don’t have to be just something I do a every few weeks! And I have better shelter then a truck cap in the cold!