Leaving in a SuperDuty, don’t know when I’ll be back again 😩 🛻 🪹

Almost by default the nicest weather is the day you head home. Cool, not a cloud in the sky. I can’t believe already 11 days have come and gone since I headed out here on July 30th in the rain, and set things up as the rain clouds were pulling off. Back to the land of plastics recycling and plastic houses with solar panels at least if your woke and not a trash burning outlaw redneck.

The SuperDuty has been great, and in many ways the adventures of this summer vacation were unchanged from years past, though I tried to visit places I hadn’t been in a number of years just to change things up. 🚛 Yesterday, I did Montezuma – I did stop by the Nature Center briefly during a thunderstormb but my main focus was a 10 mile round trip paddle from Mud Lock to Mays Point via the Seneca River and Clyde River. 🚣‍♂️ Lots of interesting birds and wildlife – I realized the plastic thing I found in Big Red was the lens cap I was missing from my binoculars, so I can re-install that once I get home.

Home ultimately is where I will end up by the close of day – 8 PM, maybe 8:30 PM. My goal is to leave the Ithaca area sometime between 4 and 5 PM. 🥱 I don’t have a real set schedule, still chewing over which state parks to visit. ⌚ Maybe Buttermilk Falls State Park, do the gorge trail and swim there, it’s been a half dozen years since then. 🏊‍♂️ There is also a set of falls on the Six Mile Creek I visited when I was out here for Democratic party event in 2004, that I might consider visiting too. I’ll have to look at the Ithaca Trails app and other Finger Lakes Trail apps to see what are good possibilities. 🚶‍♀️ Actually so cool this morning, with the breeze I’m giving pause to the notion of swimming in favor of hiking or biking for the balance of the day. My beach towels are kind of dirty from all the sand over the past week.

I didn’t get ice yesterday, and predictably the milk was very curled. I poured the sludge into the bucket shitter, need to bury that with all the poop shortly. Bacteria should make all that crap rot quickly, far faster than any landfill. Ended up having a fire this morning, as I didn’t want to bring home a gag worthy milk jug only for it to smell before I could burn it up on the next trip. 🔥 Weather depending, that could be as soon as Friday, but I think I’d rather work a 5-day work week this week, and then maybe do one last trip to the Potholers and House Pond Campsite taking off a Friday, and driving north on Thursday after work. And maybe one more Schoharie trip to swim at Mine Kill before the pool closes for the summer with Labor Day Weekend. In less then four weeks, I’ll work remote that Friday from before Labor Day from Speculator, maybe Hardwood Hill. Working remote isn’t quite the same as vacation, but if I leave early before work, I can secure that nice campsite I like for Labor Day Weekend.

Besides the Montezuma Paddle, I went for a swim at Sampson State Park beach on Seneca Lake. 🪿 It’s not a real nice beach, but it is on the lake, a basic almost town-like beach you might find in Wells or Speculator in the Adirondacks. SwioKind of more chipped rock then sand. And then I road along the Lake Trail and some of the old roads of the Sampson Air Base, always a very enjoyable activity though it’s increasingly overrun by e-bikes. 🚲 Just fun to explore the abandoned roads and woods reverting back. Then I watched the sun set from Willard Cliffs, though it mostly set into the clouds. 🌇 Came back, had a fire, smoked some weed and pounded a few beers, fried up the remaining summer squash I had. I want to stop at the farm stand on the way back home outside of Greene, as when I was coming here they had a ton of zucchini and I’m hoping the same is true on the way home, as I want to stock up. 🍆

Taking camp down slowly but surely. 🏕️ There is just a lot of things to do, I want to keep the gear fairly organized and clean 🫧 for easier unpacking when I get home. But onwards today. I’m tired. But my bags are packed, I’m ready to go, leaving in the SuperDuty, don’t know when I’ll be back again.