Earlier nights 🌇

I find it hard to believe that summer is almost done. Once I’m back from summer vacation it will not be August but actually September. Already darkness is creeping in so much earlier as we get into the second half of August. I’ll get a minor respite being out in the Finger Lakes with sunsets being 15 minutes later but it will be such a shock come Labor Day when I have to drive back east.

I still have a late summer vacation to look forward. I’m extending it by a few days because I’ve not done as many long weekends this year. But then it will be September with much earlier sunsets. Come September when I get home there will be hardly any time to ride after dinner or go down to the park. And before you know it the leaves will be changing in the high country.

I do want to get up to Perkins Clearing in mid September and then October to the Saint Regis Canoe Area to do that Adirondack Rail Trail. But then a deep and dark December is ahead, months of snow, ice and cold in my drafty old apartment. And I’ll have to decide if I will be taking the local bus back and forth to work, adding more time to commute now that the express is done – or at least try to ride in as much as possible.

I wish I could have used my summer better but I’d didn’t loose out much with the freak out about my old truck – it was better to get checked out – and the other weekend I stayed home was kind of rainy. And other weekends I couldn’t get away for long weekends because I had to cover staff who were out. But just yesterday it seemed like summer was just beginning. It’s the last summer with Big Red.

I’m so grieving that it’s the last summer with Big Red. How fast 14 years came and went. But while the truck might make it through the winter but it doesn’t have much life in it – I’ve noticed that there is now rust starting to chew away at the frame besides all the rocker panels and the bed – plus it’s pushing 120,000 miles and I’ve not been perfect at maintaining it. But it’s time next spring to get a truck, as I want something new and reliable before heading out to Michigan. But there are a lot of memories both good and bad with that now old truck.