Good evening! Nice evening laying back in the hammock. A barn owl is hooting in the distance, and I hear from crickets. The moon is obscured by the clouds but it’s still not super dark in the woods. Rain has been gone since midday 🕛 and now the woods is fairly dry with a dropping dew point. There is a group of bow hunters 🙇 a quarter mile down the road – they’re the group with the big jacked up 3/4 ton truck with the pick up camper. Far enough way that the only way I know there down there is occasionally a I hear their coon dog 🐶 howling or an occasional hoot or holler from their camp – that an I drove past their camp earlier. Coyotes are loud tonight.

Mostly cloudy and 53 degrees at the Allegheny National Forest. ☁ There is a west-northwest breeze at 6 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 47 degrees. The skies will clear around 11 pm.

Today as expected was kind of a damp and somewhat rainy day ☔ although the rain ended much earlier than in Albany but the first sign of any real clearing was not until around sunset. I sat out and read outside for a while but started to feel cold and damp and decided to hot tent with the book. 📖 I got through my second book of vacation – as I noted earlier – Andrew Revkins book on Weather. Nice picture book, sometimes adults like books with lots of graphics. Second book I’ve read on vacation. 📚 Very warm at times in the tent – that heater kicks out a lot of heat and with temperatures in the mid 50s I kept having to turn it off.

I drove over to Jakes Rocks for a while this afternoon to top off the batteries but ended up disconnecting the accessory batteries from the alternator when I started smelling ozone. 🔋 I don’t want to accidentally fry the alternator while I’m on vacation or even just burn up a wire or a fuse. It’s fine – after today the sun will be shining and I’ll rely entirely on the solar for the accessory loads as the sun will out. ☀

Walking around Jakes Rocks was nice although it was rather cloudy and dark ☁. But other than that a fine afternoon. I’ll admit today was a quiet day but my expectations were pretty low.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 42 degrees at 6am. Typical for tonight. Northwest wind 3 to 6 mph. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became light drizzle by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 50 degrees. The record low of 21 occurred back in 1964.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔 with 80% illuminated. The moon will set at 1:38 am. The 🌕 is on Saturday night with mostly clear skies. The sun will rise at 7:19 am with the first light at 6:51 am, which is one minute and 5 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 12 hours and 32 minutes of darkness, an increase of 2 minutes and 46 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 62 degrees at 4pm. One degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 10th. Northeast wind 5 to 7 mph. A year ago, we had cloudy skies. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 63 degrees. The record high of 80 was set in 2017.

I’ve decided to stay at this campsite one more day. ⛺ I just don’t feel like taking down camp with a week’s worth of gear and a tent to put away that is still a bit damp. Going to be a nice day tomorrow, so I definitely want to go hiking and park the truck somewhere to fully charge the accessory batteries. I might go to Titusville as I didn’t visit the museum last time I was there in 2012 or might just go for a walk along the reservoir, parking down at the swimming beach and maybe hiking up Rim Rock. 🚶

Wednesday who knows. 💭 West Virginia is still a possibility. The US 219 isn’t that far away and if I get up well before dawn and leave by eight I can probably do both Mount Davis State Park and Hoye Crest in Maryland before setting up camping in Cannan Heights. It looks as of the last time I checked the burn ban is still on but I don’t have to have a campfire. I always have the lights and the heater. And good music to listen to. I would probably stay until Sunday there and then come back through Pennsylvania and stay at the County Bridge Campground on Sunday into Columbus Day. Going to be mild and sunny the rest of the week.

Alternatively, I could drive up through Allegany State Park and camp, hike and hunt squirrel in Cattaraugus County or fish and hike in the Zoar Valley. 🐠 I’ve always wanted to check out the Eternal Flame Falls in Orchard Park – I read about it a lot now that I work with several Buffalo clients thee days. ⛲ Maybe the leaves are better up north in New York? 🍂

I could also move to somewhere farther south in the National Forest, check out Nebraska Bridge and that wildlife refuge down that way. Saturday or Sunday visit the Elk center and do the Elk Scenic Drive🐯 along with visiting Hyner View Park which might have good color by then. I would also overnight at the County Bridge campground. Or honestly, I could stay at the same site all week. At any rate, wherever I camp that final night, I don’t want to be more than four driving 🚘 hours away from Albany so I can get back relatively early and have time to stop for lunch, visit some parks, take back roads and get back early enough to unpack.💼 It was too long of a drive for my sanity all the way out to Allegheny National Forest on the way it here.🌲🌲

The damn camp lantern I bought mantles for remains real smokey with yellow flames and tons of soot 🏮. Not sure what the issue is. I was thinking that that the generator tube is clogged with dirt but the filter on it seems fine as does the gas pressure. I checked that I installed the proper mantles. Yeap. Everything seems fine but the inside of the lantern is filled with oily soot, the glass keeps on getting sooty and the top is dripping with soot. Fortunately I have plenty of electricity power off the truck, the lantern is just a backup in case of undervoltage and for extra light. Wouldn’t want to have it alone.

In four weeks on November 4 the sun will be setting at 5:07 pm (Standard Time),🌄 which is one hour, 41 minutes and 7 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had partly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 51 and 36 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 53 and 34 degrees. The record high of 76 degrees was set back in 1994.

I do really like that green Don’t Tread On Me – Live Free or Die shirt 👚 I bought online. I would want to get caught dead wearing it in Albany but it’s fun here in the wilderness. I’m no fan of Donald Trump – he’s a racist moron with generally bad ideas 👺but I do think government should be downsized and stay out of people’s business. That’s why I’m eventually thinking of moving to a state like Missouri when I own my off grid property with solar on the roof, composting for the toilet and a burn pit out back for the trash. An an AR-15 because they sound like a lot of fun to shoot.

Looking ahead, Average High is 55 🍂 is in 3 weeks, Veterans Day 🇺🇸 is in 5 weeks, Cyber Monday 🛍️ is in 8 weeks, First Sunday of Advent ✝️ is in 8 weeks, Earliest Sunset of the Year ⌛️ is in 9 weeks and Festivus 🍖 is in 11 weeks.