A possible dream

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If you don’t take the first step, you will never get there. But I’m so close but not ready to step off the bus.

At one level it seems like the most exceptional year with high interest rates and a booming stock market that swelled my net worth at twice the rate of my salary – which ain’t bad figuring this year I will close out the year with a six figure income for the first time in my life. Which ain’t bad, though six figures ain’t what it once was before inflation. I have a job I love, that is a lot of fun, pays good even if I am staring down another winter my grimy, falling apart mold infested apartment – assuming I’m not evicted. I’ve been looking at houses but none really suit me or the way I want to live anywhere within a reasonable commuting distance from Albany.

Over the past three weeks, I’ve worked 11 days in the office and spend much of the rest of the time working remotely from the woods. At the end of this weekend it will be 8 nights camping in Rennselaerville, the Green Mountains and now the Adirondacks. I am fortunate at least for a few weeks in the autumn every other year, remote work returns from the wilderness then my normal suburban office overlooking the old city dump. I’m. happier out in wilderness. Some day this won’t just be a trip but home. I know it, I can do it as I’m building up the resources and skills to live the life I want to live.

Truth is that there are many alternatives to the vinyl siding and marble counter tops and carpets of suburbia. There are many options for cabins, woodstoves and off grid buildings. There are many rural areas out there where nobody cares if you have fires, burn trash and debris. More and more states are legalizing cannabis and many states have far better gun laws than New York. Many have excellent public lands and forests within a short drive. I’m saving a lot and it’s a dream I can live if not tomorrow then the day after then. My life won’t be over at forty unless I want it over then. But the best is yet to come I believe.

TriMount

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TriMount

A digital rendering of the Black Dome Mountains in the Catskills.

Changes in the shadows 🍂

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One of the things I notice about autumn evenings is how much the sun angle has changed. The sun is lower place throughout in the day but come evening they are most pronounced. It’s kind of a special time, one to embrace before darkness, at least in my mind.

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I was thinking it was almost a year since I was camping up at Canaan Heights in West Virginia. I remember the autumn feel down there in the evening both when doing evening rides on Forest Road 13 and that evening I watched the sun set from Canaan Valley WMA.

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Especially on very clear autumn evenings like tonight with deep blue skies offsetting the autumn colors of the trees. After a warm autumn day… Soon to be chilly autumn evening. How fast time comes and goes.

Stopped a while at the Indian Lake Campground Boat Launch 🏕

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I really don’t get the appeal of campground camping. Who wants to spend time in the woods in a campground bunched up against a whole lot of other people, smelling their smoke and hearing their boombox playing. Really if at all possible, I camp in the wilderness as far away from people as possible.

But then again, buying a house has as much appeal to me as campground camping. Really all the same things apply.

Cheney Pond

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Ortho Cheney Pond

This is a beautiful aerial photo super-imposed on the LiDAR hillshade to show the area with detail as you might see it from an airplane in late winter.

You can drive down to Cheney Pond via an unmarked road along Boreas Road, on top of a hill with a pull-off. The road is somewhat rutted but there is a drive-in campsite at the bottom of the road. From there, you can paddle across Cheney Pond and follow a narrow but navigable stream down to Lester Flow, which is little more then a still water in the Boreas River. At one time, Lester Flow was a all flooded but the dam is long gone, just leaving the still water.