June 6, 2015 evening

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At the 10 o’clock hour it’s 53 degrees and clear. Chilly night on tap, frost expected in the Adirondacks. Tommorow sunny and 76 with clouds later.

Two weeks until the start of calendar summer….

At least for a few more weeks the daisies are out and the spring peepers will sing their song. Chilly evening out but still pretty with a million stars around. Before you know it though, the daisies will fade away and black eye susans will take over the fields. The colors of spring will mature into summer. The long summer nights won’t last forever.

Today I ended up hanging in town, working on the blog for a bit, then went down to the library for a while. Then I went down to the Mo-He-Con-Nuck Nature Preserve for walk and spent some time fishing and reading down by the Hudson River. Came home, had some drinks and food, then went for the evening walk.

Tommorow, thinking of heading down to North-South Lake for a hike, paddle, and fishing. If I decide to do that, it should be a nice day. Might camp over tomorrow night at my parent’s house.

Next weekend if the weather is nice, I am looking forward to heading out to Madison County and Charles Baker State Forest for the weekend. If I had known this weekend was going to be so nice that would have been this weekend’s plans. But still a bit chilly this weekend in the evening.

Why I’m Getting Away from Week Long Vacations and Weekend Trips

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Quarter

I have been giving a lot of thoughts about what my summer plans should be lately…

I have my big jacked up truck with good tires and the electrical system fixed so it should keep the lights burning well into the night while camping. I will have my full-size spare tire, and I’m going to pick up a new jump pack some time this week, in case the automatic battery shutdown fails to do it’s thing (which is less likely now that the voltage regulator is putting out the proper voltage at idle). At some point I may be due for brakes, but that’s a minor thing. I will replace them once I hear or see evidence they need work. So things are going good.

Yet, this year I’m thinking of doing things differently. Not so many weekend trips (except when it’s real hot – heading up to the Potholers), and not so many week-long trips. Instead, I am going to do more long-weekend trips, e.g. 3-4 day weekends throughout the summer.

Camping

Two-day weekend trips

Two-day weekend trips aren’t bad and they can be a lot of fun. But they also are a lot of work between packing, unpacking, and shopping for groceries. They also tend to cost on average between $50-75 when you figure in gasoline, food, drink, and supplies. They certainly aren’t free, even if camping out in the woods doesn’t cost anything per se. These trips aren’t bad, but they do get tiresome, especially if I go out every weekend.

During periods of extreme heat and humidity on weekends I will still head up to the Potholers. But in moderate summer weather, or when it seems like the weekends are going to be rainy, I am pretty much going to stay in town.

Week-long trips

Week long trips always sound like a good idea on paper. They are necessary for longer trips, like out to Western NY or Pennsylvania. But the problem with week-long trips is you kind of stuck with the trip, once you start them. You’ve committed to five days off from work, and nine days in the woods. If you forget something you need, you kind of screwed. The camera stops working, well then you miss out on pictures all week long. Shorter trips avoid these problems.

Humid Afternoon on Shortpoint

The long-weekend is the solution

Long weekends give you the best of both worlds. They aren’t as much work as packing for a week long trip, and they aren’t such a major commitment of vacation time. If you decide not to go away for a long-weekend, and you only lose a day or two of vacation time. If things get screwed up or you leave something home, your not as screwed as you might be if your leaving for a full week.

Two-day weekend trips are a lot of packing and unpacking, and week long trips often are too long.