Good morning! Happy Ugly Truck Day. Five weeks to State Fair Opens. Mostly sunny and 74 degrees in Delmar. Calm wind. The dew point is 68 degrees. The muggy weather ends Tuesday around 11 am.

Today will be mostly sunny, with a high of 88 degrees at 3pm. Six degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 70 at 10am. West wind 3 to 6 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. The high last year was 81 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1991.

The sun will set at 8:27 pm with dusk around 9:00 pm, which is 50 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for mostly cloudy conditions and 81 degrees. The dew point will be 67 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 6 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 50 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 45 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of showers and thunderstorms, mainly between 11pm and 2am. Patchy fog after 2am. Otherwise, mostly cloudy, with a low of 65 degrees at 6am. Two degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 67 at 6pm. West wind around 6 mph becoming calm in the evening. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. In 2016, we had cloudy skies. It got down to 55 degrees. The record low of 45 occurred back in 1974.

So I got the new rear brakes on Big Red and the noise is gone. I think I was totally scammed into getting new pads and rotators on the back but it got rid of noise that had me worried. I am sure most of then noise was just mud and rust in the rear brakes. I feel safe stopping now on those big hills in the Finger Lakes even if I overpaid for some work that I didn’t really need (in retrospect). The sales person seemed so convincing and I didn’t want to fall into the trap of totally neglecting the brakes (and having breakdowns) like I did on my old truck in college.

I think I’ve finally learned my lesson and will ask for a written estimate before repairs are tended and all parts back. I’m also going to start doing my own brakes. Smart and savvy people with limited information, in a rush, who don’t ask the right questions are most likely to get scammed like I did. Look who Bernie Madoff scammed. It wasn’t poor, ignorant people but financially educated upper middle class families.  I’m not a bad person, but I should have asked better questions and got everything in writing. Scammers want to believe the victim, not the criminal is at fault.

I didn’t sleep all that well last night after coming to the realization on how I was ripped off, until rooting around my medicine cabinet I found some sleeping pills or maybe sinus medication or something. I don’t know, but it had some kind of antihistamines listed in the label and it was a two pack. I think it may have been expired and the label was covered with mildew, but as I shared the other day, expired medications still work. I am running low on podcasts of interest unfortunately.

Tonight I have to get packed for my vacation. I may run down to the store and buy some groceries and gas up the truck, although I don’t think I will buy more than a few days as I can pick up  supplies I need. I also have to get some money out of savings to pay for vacation and the repair bill for the truck. But hey, at least I can stop, and there is no dinner.

It should be a nice week out in the Finger Lakes, hopefully nice and quiet and relaxing. So far the weather looks good for the week. Each day I will go out hiking in the gorges then swim and sit out by the pool. I will enjoy some nice sunsets, some good ice cream, and some quality time in the sun. Sit back to midnight along Foster Pond, looking up the stars. Campfires every night, baking and cooking on the camp stove. Delicious dinners. Fresh corn bread, brownies, biscuits,

I have decided I will leave on Friday evening for Madison County, but I won’t drive in but instead go home and pack the coolers and propane then leave from there. Friday is expected to be one of the hottest days of the year, so I don’t want my coolers to melt right off out of the bat, and I worry about the propane tank getting too hot sitting in the back of my truck all day and releasing gas into the back. That would be a stinky, if not explosive mess. Madison County will get me an hour and half west, so even if I poke around a bit on Saturday, I will be out to the Finger Lakes, possibly early enough to hit up a pool before they close at seven.

Saturday I am going to head probably through the Northern Finger Lakes through Auburn and Seneca Falls, and then head south. I like driving US 20, and I haven’t been over that way in a while. Maybe I’ll swing by Montezuma if I am going that way, it also depends on how hot it is and what time I am making. I always like to go other ways and explore the scenery.

On this day in 1969, Apollo 11’s crew successfully makes the first landing on the Moon in the Sea of Tranquility. Americans Neil Armstrong and Buzz Aldrin became the first humans to walk on the Moon, well at least in England. Us Americans would get to watch it the next day due to the international date line.

Looking ahead, there are 5 weeks until State Fair Opens when the sun will be setting at 7:41 pm with dusk at 8:11 pm. On that day in 2016, we had patches of fog, partly cloudy skies and temperatures between 85 and 57 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 79 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1947.