Notes — Andy Arthur.org

Good morning, Happy Thursday ☺️

Andy | July 23, 2026

Up and going this morning, checking through my packing list and getting ready for a three-night adventure in Schoharie County. Looks like a nice day.

Tired but I am going.☕ Lots of coffee and a bowl of oatmeal for a quick breakfast. Some cleaning in the kitchen, a quick Should be a great long weekend, looking forward to hiking Bramley Mountain on Saturday, and all that fresh produce. Of course, gas prices are going up, but I’ll take the bite and keep the SuperDuty gassed up, as early as possible before prices go up much more. I can’t imagine gas will be up to $5 a gallon or higher before the second week of August. 🍁 Get’s too bad, the public will be hauling the Trumpster out to the Dumpster, or at least his conspirators in Congress. Hell of it is I voted for this crap. 💩

Still annoying the issue with the voltage meter, but whatever, 🛻 I think everything else now is working good, and I have wires ready to go when I get the replacement gauge and RC Snubber wired up on Monday. Doing a little cleaning and scrubbing, getting ready not just for this trip but vacation more generally which will start a week from now. ⚡ Still chewing over the dash cam options. I noticed this morning that despite being in my cart, the price popped back up by $20. I can’t justify $250 at this point for a dash cam, even if it’s a nice model. I think I will wait to see when the next sale is, maybe over Labor Day. 📹 I might install the old dash cam from Big Red into the SuperDuty for now, just so I can record things even if it’s not perfect quality due to the lens fog. The model I’m looking at – the Vivfo A119M Pro – is almost a year old, it should be going down regularly in price, not up. 🤷‍♂️

The plan is next Thursday to set the SuperDuty to start up at 6:40 AM, ⏰ and be to For the Love of Bacon 🥓 and the Rotterdam Gas Station by 7 AM, and then be rolling down to Bainbridge. Honestly, I am not in that much of a rush, it’s vacation, and I will certainly need toilet breaks 🧻 though I’ll try to limit my fluids for the trip out so I’m not so desperately searching for a place to pee especially once I reach Ithaca. Probably stop at Valley View Produce in Center Lisle, 🍆 🌽 and then crack open the first beer at camp 🍻 around noontime and set things up, and hopefully be kicking my feet up in the hammock after having zucchuni fried in bacon grease and beer by 1 PM or so, and fishing by mid-afternoon. It’s funny I started to do vacation leaving on Friday to avoid traffic, but over the years, I’ve started adding on more days, though not as many as I did last year.

Leaving work right at 5 PM today to drive out to Schoharie. 🛣️ Schedule a remote start for right at 5 PM so by the time I reach the truck, the air conditioning will be blowing, engine warmed up for climbing tha First Street Hill and merging onto I-90. Probably going to do the Thruway which I hate at rush hour, but whatever. 🤷🏻‍♂️ I’ll drive carefully, the new truck has excellent brakes. Once I get to Rotterdam things get a lot quieter, 🚧 though I’m sure I-88 is all torn up as it always is. Get set up around 6 PM or so, have a relaxed evening in the hammock with a fire – hoping to get some pallets to chop 🪓 this morning on the way in – and then tomorrow hike in the Schoharie Valley, float a bit in the Schoharie Creek, hit up the farm stands, and maybe end the afternoon with a swim 🏊‍♂️ in the Mine Kill Pool. Tomorrow driving down to Bramley Mountain, to see the new fire tower there. Just a quiet, relaxed weekend ahead to test out my gear before summer vacation. Address any deficiencies in packing and gear before vacation, though the nice thing about the Finger Lakes is at least there is Walmart, Tractor Supply, Tops, and several other stores within a short drive to get things I’m missing.

The long-range for vacation week looks excellent, 🌻lots of seasonably warm but not excessive hot days with ample sunshine and not a lot of threat of rain. Maybe even a bit cool in the evenings, up on the backbone, should bring lots of jeans and long sleeve shirts for sitting by the fire or leaning back in the hammock, or laying out on the grass at Foster Pond watching the shooting stars. 🌃 Listening to cows moo. 🐮 Now I did want to get out to Michigan but did you see gas prices lately? ⛽And it’s so much more of an easy drive out to Watkins Glen. 😌 And it will be nice at the pool and swimming in the lake.

Map: North-South Lake Campground and Kaaterskill Clove

Outbreak Updates

Andy | July 22, 2026

Grinding at my brain 🧠

Andy | July 22, 2026

I really want to get that starting battery voltage meter working reliably before my summer vacation next week. It sounds stupid, but I like having an accurate number associated with the starting batteries’ voltage just so I can feel safe leaving the truck parked for multiple days. I know it’s unlikely the dual-AGM battery SuperDuty with a gasser engine is likely to have issues starting by ordinary parking during the summer months, but like a oil pressure or temperature gauge, it’s good for reassurance. I have two voltage gauges on the way, plus a box of RC Snubbers and the hope is this will get me a good reliable gauge – maybe not for this weekend – but at least for vacation.

Labor Day is Late This Year on September 7th

Andy | July 22, 2026

Already starting to think a bit about the final inning of summer this year. August 9th I’ll be back home from summer vacation, and then there is really only three weekends left until Labor Day Weekend. And that’s only because of the way the calendar fell this year.

August 15 – 16
August 22 – 23
August 29 – 30

While that on paper seems like three remaining weekends to travel before Labor Day, in reality with certain rainy weekends, selling Big Red, and any other personal things that come up during the weeks, the odds of getting out of town more then 1 or 2 weeks before Labor Day hits is quite unlikely.

I do want to to do an adventure to House Pond Campsite and the Potholers one last time before summer is done – probably a three or four day adventure, and maybe one more trip out to Schoharie and Mine Kill to enjoy whatever summer days remain in the SuperDuty. It’s unlikely I’ll do an autumn trip to Piseco-Powley, but I might do a weekend trip out to Schoharie to stock up at the farm stands – though Mine Kill Pool is done once again come Labor Day but it’s so late this year it’s certain to be cool.

Then Labor Day, September 7th.

By then the Adirondacks are all but certain to showing signs of autumn, not only with darker nights but cooler days and hints of autumn color everywhere. Labor Day is really late. Sunset is 7:19 PM and average high is 78 degrees. I am hoping to do a usual Labor Day tradition – head to Hardwood Hill Campsite in Perkins Clearing at dawn – work remote the Friday. Have a big ol’ fire, look at the stars. Maybe ride the mountain bike back to West Canada Lake Wilderness or down to town. Just hang out, enjoy the sun, read and relax. Autumn, it’s coming.

Feeling snubbed 😤

Andy | July 22, 2026

After doing some testing, I think I discovered I burned up the internals of yet another voltage gauge. Both the nice matching voltage-amperage gauge to the one on the solar, I was only using the voltage side of and a replacement voltage gauge have failed now. I thought it was a bad connection especially on the ground side of things, but after testing both gauges on the bench power supply, only after re-wiring the gauge, I discovered the gauges are fried.

I was like fuck. This sucks. Then I proceeded to try to figure out what is killing my gauges. At first I thought it was fly-back, but I already have a reverse diode protecting the LED on coil side of the gauge. But I came to realization most likely it’s a transient voltage spike when the relay closes that is frying the gauges. One gauge could be defective and have failed after sitting in storage for a while, but not both. I ended up ordering a 10-box of Resistive-Capacitive Suppressors and two more cheap volt gauges. I had wanted to order a second volt-amp meter like I have the solar/accessory batteries but I couldn’t find one, and figure it’s better to install a cheap voltage in case I burn that one out too. But transients are the only think I can think of killing the gauges. 🤪 Maybe it’s just for the sanity side of things, but I want to be able to look up and have a number associated with the state of charge on the starting battery while camping, in case that is getting low. I know this gauge is not essential but it for my sanity, knowing the truck has good charge on the starting battery, and as soon as I turn the key, it will spring to life.

Still thinking about dash cameras. 📹 I think I want to get one before summer vacation, but I want something that is good quality without the lens haze 🌫 the dash cam one on Big Red got sometime in late 2020 after 3 summers of use. I kind of like being able to document my trips and werid things I pass along on the roads, and I don’t want a super cheap one that is shit but also $230 by the time you figure in a high-quality SD card (they recommend an even higher speed 128-gb one for the wiz-bang new models) and add in tax. Lot of money, when your credit card bill is already over $1.1k, plus vacation expenses ahead. The tank is full of fuel in SuperDuty ⛽ but I’ll burn a lot of that when camping over the weekend, but the plan is top it off in Rotterdam on the way out to the Finger Lakes and hopefully only need one more tank before vacation is done if even that. And then just food, 🌭 some ice cream, 🍦 and supplies though hopefully not a lot. And it will go onto the mid-September due credit card bill 💳 which certainly helps. Maybe I’ll have to touch the rainy day fun to make my bills through August though I’m hoping not.

I wanted to ride into work today, 🚌 but I saw the radar with the front approaching with heavy rain and thunderstorms, 🌩 so I hurried off to the bus. And caught the bus and shuttle to work. Hoping my luck streak continues and I can make it to the earlier local bus home again tonight, it seems like it runs persistently late, and despite the schedule, I still have managed to catch that earlier bus the past three times I’ve tried with no issues. Figure just keep an eye on the real-time bus tracking. Tomorrow, driving to work, and then heading to camp after work. 🏕 Going to head out to Schoharie for the weekend, Friday hike Vromans Nose, do some floating on the Schoharie Creek at Towpath Mountain, get veggies at Shauls, then in afternoon swim at Mine Kill after wandering around the fields and trails around there. Saturday, I want to hike Bramley Mountain Fire Tower and ride some of the Catskill Scenic Trail, north of Bloomfield, and maybe get ice cream in Stamford. Sunday, back down to Mine Kill and maybe some fishing in Looking Glass Pond. 🎣 See how the SuperDuty handles on those rough roads and hills up that way. Looking forward to going down the hills without having to pray I have enough braking capacity left at the bottom of the hills.

I guess after stop engaging and blocking the scammer on AutoTrader 🚘 the amount of replies I got for my truck slowed down. Or maybe then the algorithm started blocking them after I started flagging the obvious scams, but also didn’t want to block legitimate leads. Now I am getting them on cars.com. But no serious offers on the truck. I guess I knew it would take time, and maybe after vacation I’ll have to rethink the price, though I think $4,500 with the cap and lift kit is more then fair, though I get that the welding repair isn’t cheap, and there are a lot of old Silverados around.

A week from Thursday is summer vacation. 🥓 That is once I get the bacon, I tell myself. And gas it up, for god knows how much, as Trump blows up the Middle East. ⛽ The way I look at it, is vacation is a little over a week away, and gas prices can only go up so much in the next two weeks. I don’t think fuel shortages are likely, and it’s best to enjoy summer vacation 🏖 especially if things look more uncertain for the second half of the summer, though I still think I will do some traveling the SuperDuty, because I’ve spent all this money on the truck, best not just leave it parked.

Terrain Map: Indian Fields Before the Alcove Reservior