Notes — Andy Arthur.org

Steering wheel covers

Andy | July 27, 2026

One of the things I dislike about the SuperDuty with the XL work truck trim is that awful hard steering wheel. It’s about as hard plastic as they make it, the lifted Silverado I had had a much softer steering wheel. Indeed, that was one of the issues I identified in the test drive, but on the other hand I wanted a SuperDuty for the power, reliability, and flexibility without spending too much on it.

I won’t argue that steering wheel cover will break the bank. I almost put one in my shopping cart a few months back at Wally World. Still I am hesitating at getting one, as it’s lately been one expense after another, though it would make the long drive somewhat more pleasant. I don’t want something frilly or high end, just something to make it a little softer and easier on my hands, without slipping much or looking out of place on the truck. And I don’t know if I want to make my steering wheel thicker, though I have big hands!

But I do want a little more comfort on a work truck.

Face it, I’m already checked out on vacation 🏖️

Andy | July 27, 2026

Doesn’t make sense ot leave before Thursday with rain coming, and I’ll be riding my bike to work today and busing it for Tuesday and Wednesday, but I plan to set the SuperDuty to fire up at 6:40 AM, get bacon and gas at 7 AM and hit the Warren Anderson shortly thereafter.

Hoping for a nice vacation 🏖️ not too crazy but very relaxed and laid back. Lately I’ve been very low energy, probably it’s the dog days of summer. While I brought my mountain bike 🚴 and tube ⭕, I couldn’t be bothered to reassemble them or inflate the tube when I was out in Schoharie but I will take advantage of both when I’m out in the Finger Lakes. Kayak too. 🛶 Think I have most of the technical issues worked out with batteries and camping in the truck, 🪫 I’ll make sure to bring electrical tools – and extra spokes and the chain puller for my bike – to avoid any unforseen issues. Not going to beat the bike doing too much hard pasture riding. It’s just better to ride the gravel roads, and then when I get to pastures, just walk and have the cows approach me. 🐮 With a big grin on my face. ☺️

It was a nice weekend, with a few issues with equipment – discovered a loose wire on the Xy-cd60 control box – but other then that it worked well. The F-350 rides heavy on the rough Betty Brook Road, but it’s a very solid ride, and except for the one really deep mud wallow I drove through, I never felt like I needed 4×4, though I definately took advantage of Hill Descent Control. It’s kind of fun to look out the mirror and be crawling down the hill, with your foot off the brake, but the brake lights are on. Obviously, but still it’ s kind of nice. ⛽ I do love the SuperDuty, maybe not so much the fuel economy, the lifelong economy averaging maybe a notch over 13 1/2 miles per gallon. I was worried gas prices would surge before summer vacation, but it seems like at least for today, $100 a barrel oil spooked the President, and he’s pausing his foolish war in Iran. Who know if we’ll be at war in two weeks, but I’m hoping gas prices will remain the same or slightly decline by Thursday, I can gas up the SuperDuty in Rotterdam and mostly make it through vacation on a full 34-gallon tank.

Maybe the truck is fuelish, but I tell you, the SuperDuty has so much power that it really quite boring to drive on Interstate 88, 🛻 as it drones along at a constant 64 MPH or 67 MPH with basically no gear shifting or change in speed or velocity as it climbs up and down the mountains. No roar of a struggling engine, even going down steeper hills, there is enough vacuum to engine brake without much trouble. I like not having to downshift on the big hills – generally the engine has enough vaccum and I’ve noticed the longer you descend a hill with the brakes on – the more it automatically downshifts for you. And the brakes are rock solid at the bottom of hills, no brake stink. I am sure it would be different if I was towing a heavy load, but an F-350 has plenty of capacity for my needs.

During my weekend trip to Schoharie one of the wires came loose from the Xy-cd60 voltage sensetive relay control box, ⚡ and I couldn’t fix it until I got home last night as I left my jeweler screwdriver home. For some reason, being tired, I struggled and even ended up touching a hot to a ground making a big spark, but eventually I got things “fixed”. Swore a bit, yell fuck and nigger and whatever other obsensities I like being the knuckle dragging racist I am. I like obscenity, and it’s hard getting back to the city with all the backfiring cars, noisy motorcycles and kids screaming. 🔕 What I probably need is a wire ferrules and wire ferrule tool 🪛 to get them in tight permently. Maybe that’s a fix for after vacation. It’s working again though, and I am just waiting for the replacement volt meter display to wire up, I have the wires ready, and should be able to plug that in tonight. Also going to move over the old dash cam to the new truck today, that’s just plug and play, I have double sided sticky tape to put in the windshield, and then I’ll just use a bit of that tape to tack the USB cable along the edge of the windshield.

Riding the mountain bike to work today, 🚵‍♂️ rain the next two days so I’ll probably bus it work. 🚍 The bus pass works pretty good, 🪪 and it’s easy especially if I get the earlier bus home. Not looking forward to packing the truck in the pouring rain on Wednesday night, but maybe it will lighten up 🌧️ and I can do much of the packing inside, and just run outside as little as possible. But first I need to shower, get on the bike, and peddle to work. Have a good one.

Map: Tug Hill State Forest (Inman Gulf Area)

Lazy days spent in the hills and hollars 🐐

Andy | July 26, 2026

Don’t you ever ask them why, when they would cry, and look at them and sigh, and know they love you.

Lately I’ve been hardly motivated to do much, 🩴 I think it’s a bad case of the dog days of summer, some the heat and also I’ve not been terribly motivated this summer. Maybe some of it’s boredum but I’ve also not been feeling so great.

Yesterday I checked off a few things from my bucket 🪣 list, namely hiking Bramley Mountain outside of Delhi, checking out the latest of the new Catskill Fire Towers, though this was more of a returning favorite after being abandoned and torn down a half century ago before it was restored. Nice views, lot of people there with the Firetower Stewart’s and cabin open. Good hike, enjoyed it a lot but I wish my other camera was working, 📸 and it was a bit quieter to explore. I’ll have to do it a different maybe weekday without the crowds some day in the future.

Then I went over to the John Burroughs Historic Site. Mostly wanted to get some pictures of my new Ford SuperDuty in front of the Burroughs house 🛻 but also I spend a while studying the wildflowers and scenery in front of the house, and just pausing and hanging out. Ended the day by going for a swim in Mine Kill 🏊‍♂️ and enjoying the sun, though there was enough of a breeze that itw as kind of cool up at the pool. Drove back to camp over bumpy old Betty Brook Road. The SuperDuty while having a rough ride, handled it very well. I do like that hill descent control and how low first gear is on the SuperDuty. Haven’t seen many people up at Betty Brook or the state forest this week, though was a picnic group when I drove back to camp, and somebody was wilderness camping way back off the middle section of Betty Brook Road. I think the road has gotten even rougher in the three or four years since I last drove it. The truck has good ground clearance, and with the weight of the truck cap, batteries, and gear, has excellent traffic, though in the one real deep mud wallow 🐽 I did hit the 4×4 high button briefly.

I want to leave Mine Kill State Park by around 4 pm today, and I need to stop by Shauls to get mom hot peppers 🌶️ and myself some more goodies to hold me over between now and when I’m in Center Lisle on Thursday, heading out to the Finger Lakes. ⛈️ Thursday looks increasingly wet as the unstable weather dilly dailies longer then the one beautiful weather forecast Thursday onwards forecast suggested, but I think for now I’m staying on that schedule even if I’m setting up on the rain as next Friday looks beautiful. ⛽ Gas prices at the rural gas station in Grand George was $4.56 a gallon and I haven’t heard the news this weekend but I know gas prices are going to be up somewhat maybe quite a bit before summer vacation, but the end of day, whatever. ☀️ Got to enjoy vacation, and gas will be a lot less then driving out to Michigan as was the original plan. I hope putting off the trip to next year doesn’t mean that family or life obligations will make it impossible, but it became obvious as May became June and June became July it was ne ver a real option. Going to do at least one, maybe two day trips to Pennsylvania and they got burn barrels and backwoods farms down there. 🛢️ Huh.

Three quick work days in the city, 🏢 and then off to vacation. A wire got unplugged from the XY-CD60 module and it’s no longer automatically connecting the battery relay, 🪫 a fact I discovered last night and also that I left my jewelers screwdriver 🪛 at home so I couldn’t reconnect it. It’s fine, it’s been sunny and I’ve had plenty of solar power. ☀️ Make sure to pack that, though I’m sure that’s something I could always buy a Wally World. The box of snubbers I ordered has been delivered, and the voltage guages tomorrow, so I will hopefully get that up and working prior to vacation, so I can keep an eye on the status of the charge for the starting battery for the truck. 🔋 Really just for my sanity while camping. Thursday morning, I’ll punch into the Ford Pass App to fire the SuperDuty up at 6:40 AM so I can get bacon 🥓 and gas ⛽ at 7 AM and be on the Warren Anderson Expressway by 7:15 AM and to Ithaca by around 11 AM. Hopefully Thursday won’t be a wash out, but it will be nice to get to camp, crack open a beer, have a smoke and relax. Friday probably just hang out in Watkins Glen, maybe the pool and the Glen Dairy bar, watch the sun set, and walk along Rock Cabin Road. 🍦 Nothing too crazy.

As I work my way over the hills and through the hollars

Andy | July 26, 2026

Thursday evening heading out to Betty Brook, I was heading over Barton Hill on Interstate 88, feeling the smooth power of my SuperDuty truck as it descended the mountain. I was looking at the open landscape, the farms and the hills, the Schoharie Creek as it laid below.

It’s been a long time since I’ve been in the wild country, with all winter not having a truck and then much of the spring consumed building the new rig. The open landscape, the hills, and mountains kind of touched something deeply in me. I spent a lot of the weekend just taking some of the back roads around Schoharie County – officially to get to trail heads and other places I wanted to visit but also to see and smell the landscape. The fresh cut hay and barnyards. The corn rapidly growing on the land, the blue skies above.

Maybe I’ve been spending too much time in the city lately, between the garbage heaps and sewage treatment plants and dirty dingy city buses. The rumble of the printing plant and Assembly Data Center. I needed to see the sea of green under the blue skies, the sometimes tangy smell and sounds of the farm country. The shit haulers and smokey old diesel tractors. The few rusty old burn barrels, mostly forgotten after 17 year of the burn ban. I do miss those days of my youth, but there is still Pennsylvania and my own fires.

Time marches on so quickly. But the land is old, as are many of the farm families. Cows are still cows, crops still crops. Much farm machinery is decades old, but still serves it’s process. Indeed, there is so much peace found coming to Betty Brook and noting how little has changed even as the decades have come and gone. Much of what was when I was in my twenties is still the same in my forties. I do like and dream of the homesteading and farm life, the connection to the natural world, even if I do live in the city and only take the SuperDuty out to country.

Heading down to Bramley around 9 AM 🥱

Andy | July 25, 2026

Didn’t get a real early start this morning as I woke up around 3 AM and drifted in and out of sleep listening to podcasts and the sound of the water flowing along Betty Brook last night. Went to bed early as I didn’t have a fire and was tired, but then I woke up early though didn’t get out of the truck bed until 7 am.

Today’s plan is to hike Bramley Mountain. Going to bring my bathing suit and beach towel, 🩴 as after Bramley I might do the Catskill Scenic Trail for a bit of a bike ride 🚲 then head over Roxbury and see the John Burroughs Historic Site and then do another dip in Mine Kill Pool. 🏊‍♂️ Somehow I just want to park my big Ford SuperDuty in front of the Burroughs Home and take some glamor pictures. Maybe poke around Roxbury a bit. And alternative plan has me coming back through Stamford, getting ice cream 🍦 and driving up Mount Utsayantha, enjoy the power of that big 6.8L engine, and using the hill descent control heading down. Definately like having that for crawling over the rocks 🪨 on Betty Brook Road.

I feel much more rested today then yesterday, 🧴 as all I wanted to yesterday was slap on sunscreen and take a nap by the Mine Kill Pool. Finally warmed up by mid-day, ☀️ it actually felt kidn of hot after hiking Vromans Nose yesterday. It was such a cold morning yesterday. Today I have the hoodie on too to start out the day and through jeans on but I expect I will be in shorts again before breaking camp. It was funny, they have a Lake Stewart stationed up at Looking Glass Pond. I actually had seen the press release about it – the Fultonham Rod and Gun Club was pretty proud about securing one form the state, 🦦 🎣 but I had to think what a lonely job. She wanted to talk to me about invasive species education 🦋 but I was still a bit stoned at that point, and I just wanted to look at the pond for a bit before heading over to Vromans Nose, go for a little walk. 🚶‍♂️ I discovered a cute little water fall and remains of a Grist Mill below Looking Glass Pond. I guess I heard that the pond was originally built for hydropower, and wasn’t a state DEC creation, still I had never looked for the ruins or the floom out of these until yesterday.

Super quiet up here at Betty Brook this weekend, I thought there would be other campers up this way. 🏕️ Last year it seemed like there were a lot more people camping up here – there was a crew that seemed to be up here nearly every weekend last summer, but this weekend I haven’t seen anybody besides hearing a gun shot and some voices on Thursday night. 🔫 But other then that, it has been real quiet. it’s nice to get away, truck seems to be working great, I love the power and the excellent brakes, fuel economy is what you expect for a SuperDuty ⛽. I make good money, and it’s my toy, 🪀 so whatever, only melting the climaten and the poles, filling the air with wildfire smoke as the Canadian forests burn ❤️‍🔥 though not this weekend but I heard their promising more wildfire smoke for vacation next week. Pretty sunsets I guess. Well, I probably should get going.