Charles Baker State Forest

Good morning! Made it what is normally the coldest ❄ part of the year and I’m out camping 🏕 in Madison County. What can I say, I’m kind of nuts 🥜 and I like burning shit 🔥 and spending time out in the country where things are real. 🚜 For a while last night that fire was rip roaring and that smoke was black! Well it is Martin Luther King weekend. 🖤

Mostly cloudy and 13 degrees at the Moscow Hill Camping Area. ☁ There is a north-northwest breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. The current wind chill is 2. There is a dusting of snow on the ground. ☃ Things will start to thaw out at Tuesday around 10 am. 🌡️I’ll be home by then then.

I planned to leave by nine yesterday and started down the road and realized that I didn’t know where my hat and gloves 🧤 were which are kind of essential for winter camping. So I ended up heading home and searching 🔎 for a half hour until I realized that I stuck it in the cooler to carry it out.

Then I had to stop in Esperance for food and fuel. ⛽ 🥩 The roads were just wet and salty all the way until I got out to Brookfield where they were snow covered. They don’t have a bare pavement policy in Madison County though the roads did have plenty of sand on them. I got to camp ⛺ on Saturday around 12:30 which left plenty of time to gather and chop wood for the night ahead 🔥 and set up camp and listen to a podcast then go for an hour walk in a beautifully snow 🌨 covered woods before dusk. 🌆 And cook some sausages up for lunch. 🌭

Today will be mostly cloudy, then gradually becoming sunny ☁ ☀ , with a high of 27 degrees at 3pm. Five degrees below normal. North wind around 8 mph. A year ago, we had mist in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 38 degrees. The record high of 65 was set in 1995. 13.4 inches of snow fell back in 1983.❄

I’ll believe it when I see it for the sun, ☀ so far this morning has been pretty cool and gray. I’d like some sun, preferably by midday to top off the battery bank 🔋. The weatherman promised sun for today but I’m not that hopeful with the skies so gray.

Today I have planned out a ten mile hike around the state forest, 🐴 hiking the horse trails which should be well frozen this time of year. In the summer they can be quite swampy from the horse hooves churning things up but things are well cold and frozen today.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:12 pm with sun having an altitude of 26° from the due south horizon (-44.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 12.3 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 4:09 pm with the sun in the southwest (234°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (242°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:53 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 19 seconds with dusk around 5:23 pm, which is one minute and 11 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:59 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌃 and temperatures around 24 degrees. There will be a north-northwest breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 26 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 39 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 8 degrees at 6am. Eight degrees below normal. Maximum wind chill around 10 at 5am; North wind around 5 mph becoming calm in the evening. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became light freezing rain by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 30 degrees. The record low of -16 occurred back in 1971.

Going to be a cold night 🔋 I may need to start my truck up to be safe before bed. 🛏 But once I’m under the covers I should be good. But first I plan to have a big ol fire 🔥 just like I had last night.

Looking ahead, there are 2 weeks until 40th Birthday 🎉 when the sun will be setting at 5:11 pm with dusk at 5:40 pm. On that day in 2022, we had cold, partly sunny and temperatures between 14 and 0 degrees. Maybe I’ll go camping then too. ⛺ LOL 😂. Typically, the high temperature is 33 degrees. We hit a record high of 54 back in 2002.