Delmar, NY
It’s going to get hot out later ☀
Those lazy, hazy crazy days of summer are here minus maybe the hot dogs, pretzels and beer. Time is marching on the world changes in your forties.
Good morning! Happy Hot Thursday. To be predicted, it’s the hottest time of the year. Mostly sunny 😎with fog 🌫 around and 69 degrees in Delmar, NY. Calm wind. The dew point is 67 degrees. The muggy weather ends Wednesday around 7 pm. 😓
Another hot summer day ahead 🏖 though I’ll be spending it my air conditioned office and usually it will be cooling down by evening when I get home. Out for the morning walk before it gets too hot out. 10 1/2 miles walked yesterday, climbed up and down 36 flights of stairs in the office as usual.
Red kidney are cooking down in the kitchen, 🍲 they will be good with maple 🍁 syrup in the evening when it’s hot out. I got fresh blueberries at the farmers market which where $7 which seems much too expensive but inflation. 🔵 I’m running low on food and supplies but I don’t know what I want to buy and eat with the heat. 🛒 Next time I go shopping, I do want to get some freezer bags, as they’re good for freezing rice and also things like black beans for compact carrying while camping. They can be reused a few times too.
This morning I’m thinking just black coffee ☕ cream of wheat with the fresh blueberries for breakfast 🥣. I do need to get milk 🥛 as what I have in the refrigerator has spoiled. But not this morning. I’m also out of cottage cheese and Greek yogurt and frozen fruit.
Yesterday’s meals where too bland. Too much kale and brown rice. 🍚 Easy and healthy but bleh. Makes it easy and healthy but not so easy to keep on the diet going forward. I was really into kale for a while eating multiple pounds of week, but I’m getting tired of it, much like the tofu. Today I am doing chicken, peas, corn, black beans and red peppers for lunch. Pre-cooked shrimp 🦐 are thawing in the fridge, I’m going to mix with the brown rice and tomatoes for dinner and have red kidney beans with maple syrup for dessert. I put chickpeas in the fridge for soaking, I’ll either roast them to toss in with fresh blueberries, strawberries and raspberries with walnuts with a snack. Walnuts are good but loaded with fat, though at least it has a decent ratio of Omega 3. I might also make hummus, which I’ll either need to get tahini or sesame seeds to cook up.
Today will be sunny and hot ☀ , with a high of 91 degrees at 2pm. Seven degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 71 at 9am. Heat index values as high as 95. Calm wind becoming south around 6 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 81 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1886.
As I’m back on the Trek FX 2 bicycle as my choice, I might try to get up to the Downtube to talk to them about potentially buying that bicycle 🚲 and doing a test ride. I’m getting tired of studying the pros and cons of bicycles and want to commit sooner than later so I can take delivery of the bike and finally be on the road, both for commuting and getting around town. I want to break the bicycle in well before heading out to the Finger Lakes in three weeks. An additional expense I overlooked was a good quality U-lock that resists bolt cutters ✂️ which is going to add $75-100 go the cost, but I might be better off getting that on the internet rather than at the bike shop. I also want to get a rear luggage rack so I can tie a small milk crate style storage containers for keeping lunch and supplies on me when doing day trips on the bicycle 🚲 in the Finger Lakes. 💸 Looking at around or maybe slightly below $50 for that. Then another under $50 for the combination of buying a very basic digit speedometer / odometers and lights both for safety and do night riding in the National Forest after watching the sun set. 🌇
Solar noon 🌞 is at 1:01 pm with sun having an altitude of 70.1° from the due south horizon (-0.7° vs. 6/21). The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:54 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (296°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (303°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 8:37 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 26 seconds with dusk around 9:10 pm, which is 19 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:56 pm. At sunset, look for partly clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 82 degrees. The dew point will be 69 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 5 mph. Today will have 15 hours and 14 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 57 seconds over yesterday.
Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃 , with a low of 68 degrees at 6am. Six degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 69 at 7pm. South wind 5 to 7 mph. Another sticky night sleeping 😴 with the fan roaring. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies. It got down to 58 degrees. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1979.
On this day in 1947, The AK-47 goes into production in the Soviet Union. Even after almost seven decades, the model and its variants remain the most popular and widely used assault rifles in the world 🪖 because of their substantial reliability under harsh conditions, low production costs compared to contemporary Western weapons, availability in virtually every geographic region and ease of use. ⚔ I bet it would be fun to own one someday, in a freer state when I own my own land. Probably fun for ventilating a burn barrel, lol.
A hot summer weekend ahead. 🏖 Saturday, a chance of showers and thunderstorms after 2pm. Partly sunny, with a high near 86. Northwest wind around 5 mph becoming southwest in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New rainfall amounts of less than a tenth of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. Maximum dew point of 69 at 9am. Sunday, a chance of showers, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 81. Chance of precipitation is 70%. Maximum dew point of 70 at 10am. Typical average high for the weekend is 84 degrees.
That said, maybe not the nicest weekend ever especially Sunday with the clouds. 🤷♂️ One more weekend to decide and acquire a bicycle 🚲 then hopefully get out camping 🏕 the following weekend after my dentist appointment 🦷 assuming that the weather is decent. I’m thinking Schoharie County, the Mine Kill Pool, the Catskill Scenic Trail from Grand Gorge to Stamford it maybe even beyond there. 🚲 Also maybe on the Saturday bike from Old Blenheim Bridge up and over Bear Ladder Road 🐻 then down to Fultonhsm by Shauls to get ice cream. 🍦 If I have the rack on the bicycle by then not only can I carry lunch but also get some veggies. If not both of these things are good for the following week or after summer vacation. 🏖 Pool closes Labor Day but the best bicycling and farm stand finds are certainly in September and October. 🎃
Summer vacation starts Friday July 29th 🏖 with plans to head straight out to the Finger Lakes National Forest and set up camp ⛺ by noon time. Then have all afternoon to unpack and do a nice bicycle 🚲 ride and enjoy the afternoon from the forest maybe with some fishing 🎣 and a sunset 🌇 to a start things off. Watkins Glen on Saturday to paddle and swim 🏊♂️, though I may want to get to the park 🏞 early to ensure parking 🅿.
Looking ahead, there are 2 weeks until Ugly Truck Day 🚚 when the sun will be setting at 8:29 pm with dusk at 9:01 pm. On that day in 2022, we had hot, humid, mostly sunny, thunderstorm and temperatures between 97 and 72 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 84 degrees. We hit a record high of 97 back in 1991.
Still chewing over bicycles 🚲
There are just so many options and it’s difficult to decide! I really don’t want to take the advice of just what a bike shop says, as maybe their advice is in my best interest, maybe it’s not — and more likely I’m just not describing what I actually want as I might not know. I’m now leaning towards the Trek FX 2 over the Trek Dual Sport 2.
A few days back I was all about the Trek Dual Sport 2 over the FX 2. Not because I was a fan of the suspension — I really wasn’t, as it’s just something to break and lower-cost bicycles with suspensions are crap that wear out relatively quickly. Indeed, that’s the major issue with my 2004 Gary Fisher Nirvana and why the shop tells me it’s not worth rebuilding. But I really liked how I could run wider tires on Dual Sport 2, and it has more aggressive traction on the default tires then FX 2.
But maybe that’s not really needed, as it’s rare the roads I ride aren’t asphalt or hard-packed dirt. Do think I’ll have bad traction? My real concern is that I will get flat tires on the dirt roads I will sometimes ride. The FX 2 has TPI 30 tires vs 60 TPI tires which with half the threads does mean they’re more prone to punctures. But by how much? And it’s not like I can’t upgrade to more puncture resistant higher TPI tires and tubes later on if it’s a problem.
And, big heavier tires are no guarantee you won’t get flats. Trust me I know, I put a nail through the 35 inch tires on my big jacked up truck. Those BFGs are crap tires even if they look super cool. And you run over a pallet nail you are going to have a flat regardless. The differences in tire size are relatively small – FX 2 runs 700c x 35 while the Dual Sport 2 runs 700c x 44 and my old Gary Fisher Nirvana runs 700c x 42.
I’ve already decided I am not looking to do mountain bike trail riding, I am quite happy to park my bicycle at the trail head and walk back. Most of the places I go are covered with plenty of automobile roads, and my purpose for having a bicycle is to traverse boring automobile roads or rail trails quicker than a walk. At some point I may want to get a mountain bike, but a mountain bike is going to be a complete slow, heavy pig anywhere on road. A good bicycle shouldn’t kill you to move it down the road.
I need to remind myself – hunting rabbits with a 30-06 might be fun but you won’t have much meat if any left to eat. The 35s on my big jacked up truck might be fun, but I also have a V-8 to turn them. And I’ve come to the conclusion that my next truck will likely not he full sized or jacked up most likely. Full size trucks are a bitch on the trail, especially if you have to back up or are trying to get into a tiny campsite. Plus with the lift kit, I’m always afraid to abuse the truck too much in fear I’ll break shit.
The truth is that I’m thinking the FX 2 bike is the way to go. It’s the much more efficient to ride and doesn’t have the problematic front suspension that I don’t want. If I want to run a somewhat wider tire in the future, it can run 700c x 38 with a more aggressive tread. But that might not fix my fear of flats, if it becomes a problem they also make bicycle tubes that resist puncture. Tubes and tires aren’t real expensive for bicycles to replace or upgrade, they’re not like the 35 inch tires on my truck. Both bikes run the same size and type of wheels though the FX 2 has limited tube clearance. Both bikes use the same wheels, so spoke breakage risk the is same, but as long as I run the tires hard and don’t abuse the bike too much I should be good. The bicycle is rated 300 lb rider and gear.
The dual sport cycle as they say is the worse of both worlds. My fear is that it also would encourage me to abuse it with its roll confusion. A dual sport cycle is not a mountain bike. I’m sure that’s part of the reason I trashed the wheel on my Gary Fisher hybrid in college. It seemed like too much of a mountain bike but really shouldn’t have been allowed to stray too far from public roads made of dirt, packed gravel or asphalt. I feel that with the FX 2, without the suspension, more aggressive wider tires and tread pattern I’m much less likely to abuse.
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Off the Last Week of July or is it the First Week of August 🎣 ⛺ 🏊 🚴
I got my time-off request approved. I’m planning on heading out early on Friday July 28th to the Finger Lakes, preferably being on the road by no later then 8 AM so I can start setting up camp before noon. I prefer to drive out on a Friday as traffic will be much lighter on the dreaded NY 79 into Ithaca, though I expect to grind to stop heading through the city, but it’s mostly unavoidable. Setting up camp early on Friday, maximizes my chances of getting a good campsite in the Finger Lakes National Forest, most likely my old standby the Chicken Co-Op site or maybe the Potamac Road Field Campsite.
They have pros and cons. The first one can be tight to get in and out from my truck but it’s closer to Foster Pond for night hikes and fishing, and has cell service for streaming videos and audio. On the other hand, the field campsite is father back off the road, so less dust and noise, it has good sun for solar power, and no cell service, unless I walk down the road. Sometimes it’s nice to have a good excuse to put down the phone, not listen to the radio and stream audio non-stop. Be off-the-grid more.
Once camp is set up for the first day, my hope is to have a bicycle and use it to get around to more of the National Forest quickly, for hikes, fishing and watching sunsets. While it’s a bit of a drop down off the backbone to Burdett, Trumansburg or Lodi, I could see doing some day bicycle trips to those villages to pick up light groceries and supplies or get an ice cream cone. But primarily I will bicycle around the National Forest on the dirt roads, heading out to trailheads where I could lock up my bicycle before hiking or fishing.
Then during the day times, I want to do several of the bike trails and or hiking, followed by swimming. I definitely want to do the full length of Cayuta Valley Trail from Watkins Glen to Elmira, as I’ve hiked a lot of it but not seen it all. Also, probably the Black Diamond Trail from Taughannock Falls and Ithaca. Two years ago I did the Kueka Outlook Trail on foot, and it might be worthwhile to do a day trip up there again this year, especially with gas prices down a bit and because I’m planning on a direct-drive out to Finger Lakes this year.
I also want to find a day to park somewhere in Downtown Ithaca and then either take a TCAT bus up to Cornell or ride my bike up that hill — which will be a bitch — but would be fun going back down. I want to explore Triphammer Falls which I’ve always stayed away from because of the difficulty of finding parking on campus. Also maybe Wells Falls. It’s funny how most years I avoid Ithaca.
Then also some calm days paddling and fishing on Seneca Lake. I will bring the rubber tube so I can inflate that out in the Finger Lakes and float on Seneca Lake. That new kayak launch on NY 79 Seneca Lake is fantastic, plus that end of the lake is shallow and sandy which is great for floating. Last year, I had some great days doing both.
I plan to set up camp and stay at the same site for all nine-nights. Some days will be at camp, riding around the National Forest. I plan to return home on August 6th, doing mostly a straight shot home, but weather depending I might spend that final day exploring places around Ithaca before getting on the road by 3 or 4 PM for arrival back home at around 7 PM to unpack.