Good evening. Currently overcast and 31 degrees in Delmar. Without the wind and with my comfortable sweater, it doesn’t feel all that cold.

Tonight will have periods of freezing rain before 3am, then periods of rain. Gradual warming through the night. Rain stops during early to mid morning. Light northeast wind. Chance of precipitation is 80%. Total nighttime snow accumulation of less than a half inch possible. Not a lot of ice predicted. Rain by mid-morning then just cloudy with clearing late.

Earlier tonight you could occasionally see the first quarter moon. Tomorrow’s sunrise will be at 7:21 am with first light at 6:50 am, which is one minute and 30 seconds earlier then today.

Been packing and shopping for winter camping tonight. I do need to buy some food and a few supplies for tomorrow including batteries for the carbon monoxide detector. For safety in the colder weather demanding more heat and the greater chance of tent vents getting blocked by snow, I’m keeping my CO detector in the tent. The Big Buddy Heater doesn’t output CO under normal circumstances and it has a low oxygen shutoff but things can malfunction and I don’t want to die if I can avoid it.

I’ve been planning this trip for months. Probably the most difficult part will be digging out a parking spot . If I have to, I’ll camp near one of the plowed parking areas along with road. Those snowbanks can be hard to shovel through based on past experience winter camping up there in December. I will also have to shovel out the campsite – especially around where I pitch the tent, the fireplace and place for the table but even with the estimated foot of snow it should be manageable. Once I get set up I’ll have all weekend to dig snow.

I have a small $17 plastic child’s sled I bought to drag gear back to the site, especially the 20 lb propane tank which actually weights about 35 lb when mostly full and the bulky propane heater and relatively more compact lantern, tent, and tarps. I also am going to buy firewood that has to be dragged back. I also bought two more USB batteries that I will use to keep my phone and Bluetooth speaker charged. I already have one, I’ll rotate them out to the truck, charging off the accessory battery so I have music and radio throughout the weekend. I wanted to charge the phone off the propane tank but I couldn’t find any affordable and reliable piezoelectric or similar device to turn propane into charging power for the phone.

I’m not planning on getting an early start in the morning, as I want to leave after the roads are totally cleared up, but I do need to get some sleep.

I hope you had a good Friday. Sleep well!