John Boyd Thacher State Park, is situated along the Helderberg Escarpment, one of the richest fossil-bearing formations in the world. Even as it safeguards six miles of limestone cliff-face, rock-strewn slopes, woodland and open fields, the park provides a marvelous panorama of the Hudson-Mohawk Valleys and the Adirondack and Green Mountains. The park has volleyball courts, playgrounds, ball fields and numerous picnic areas with nine reservable shelters. Interpretive programs are offered year-round, including guided tours of the famous Indian Ladder Trail. There are over 25 additional miles of trails for summer hiking and mountain biking, and winter cross-country skiing, snowshoeing, hiking, and snowmobiling.
Much of this year has been shrowded in clouds of smoke, rain and just generally bad weather. Some of its climate change and some is just bad luck. Driving out to Rensselaerville State Forest and seeing all the bare trees on the way out reminds me what a raw deal a lot of this year has been weather wise. While the sun came out for a while, things were soaked up at the state forest from water logged campsite to trails saturated from yesterday’s heavy rain that washed out local roads.
Somehow I was hoping for better this autumn. Today turned out somewhat better than earlier expected and I’m blessed I got out one night but I had hoped it would be a bit nicer with more color.
So much though depends on the weather. I’m thinking if next weekend is as rainy as the early previews suggest, I’ll focus Saturday and Sunday on driving down to West Virginia and getting camp set up early for the week.
But if it looks like rain all week, then maybe not. I’m not going to postpone my vacation at this point but I might make it shorter, heading out to some place in New York State. Maybe the Finger Lakes National Forest again and then if we get a good run of nice weather I’ll head down to Pine Creek Gorge to do the rail trail for a few days or head to one of those campsites in Allegany or Cattaraugus County in Western NY. Who knows.
I just kind of want to be in West Virginia and have camp established so that I can crack open a beer and relax. Get out and ride my mountain bike around Canaan Heights from camp, hike the trails through the thick mountain laurel, watch the sunset, have a nice fire and then get a good night’s sleep. Cook some good and healthy camp food, sit and observe nature and the stars. Hike back to various scenic vistas. Just be myself as far away from Albany and my ordinary life for a while.
But maybe not my breakfast. I decided to try baking apple bread, but I didn’t use enough salt and maybe oil and I ended up with a carb loaded mess that tasted like crap. Dipping in it maple syrup and salt helped but I still ended up cooking complete junk. It happens when you experiment, at least it’s whole wheat.
Good morning! Partly cloudy and 51 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ There is a southwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 44 degrees. The skies will clear around 10 am.
So yeah, breakfast was kind of a mess with the loaf I decided to cook. 🍞 Sometimes you just got to experiment I guess. Maybe it would have been better if I added some olive oil, stevia or salt. All those apples I thought would give it enough sweetness I really made a mistake leaving out all salt from the mix. 🤮 Kind of like dinner — I decided to make brown rice with chicken, with soy sauce but that meal needed some sugar to sweeten it up and MSG to tickle the uamani side of things. 🍚 I’m so used to cooking with loads of spices that when I first tasted that rice with no spices I was shocked how bland it was. And to think 🤔 that’s how I started my healthy eating journey.
Today will have isolated showers after 10am. Partly sunny 🌦, with a high of 59 degrees at 2pm. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 22nd. Southwest wind 7 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 54 degrees. The record high of 80 was set in 2017.
Not sure what today’s plans are going to look like. ⛺ Seems like it would be nice enough to camp but cold. I wonder how many campsites would be taken at this point during the holiday weekend though yesterday would have been a complete soaker for camping. ☔ I’m thinking about going to the Green Mountains ⛰ though that’s an awful long trip for one night 🌃 that might be super cold. 🌬️ The forecast has improved but it’s going to be still quite windy and cold. But then again it’s Columbus Day Weekend. ⛵ That said, who knows how much longer there will be much color after the heavy rain and now the wind.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:44 pm with sun having an altitude of 41.6° from the due south horizon (-29.2° vs. V6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.8 footl shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:49 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (256°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (263°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:27 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 56 seconds with dusk around 6:53 pm, which is one minute and 42 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:28 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 56 degrees. There will be a southwest breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 27 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 50 seconds over yesterday.
Got the new bike 🚲 light 🔦 installed on my bicycle yesterday and it’s quite bright 🔆 from my initial before dawn testing this morning. I’m hoping if I get out today to camp I can do some night riding and see how great it really is. I love how it has USB charging built in and I can just plug in both the front and back lights for a charge while I’m home or at camp. No need to worry about batteries. 🔋
Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌃 , with a low of 40 degrees at 6am. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 18th. South wind 7 to 9 mph. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 36 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 2001.
Might be a decent night 🌃 for camping 🏕. As who knows about next week. I keep refreshing the forecast for Thomas WV and aren’t really sure what to think 🤔 about it. Still looks very cold and wet in the long range but things could change for sure.
People worry a lot about ebola. But what about the dangers of forgetting to set your parking brake?
We’ve all seen cars roll away when parked, because the driver forgot to set the parking brake, especially when they are warming up their cars. Not to mention the classic problem of the clutch slipping when you parked on a hill in a higher gear, and eventually the car rolling off.
As you car rolls down the hill, it could hit you. You could be instantly crushed by your car and die.
I’ve been following it on Facebook both the page for the WDE, Oakfield Corners and Bullvine. Online dairy judging kind of became an interest during the pandemic when I was stuck home, working remotely. There are some super cows there!
Totally bummed out about this weekend, but maybe I shouldn’t be. It didn’t rain until quite late into the night and this morning the rain has slackened up quite a bit. Maybe it will be nice enough to go for a bike ride to Voorheesville or Five Rivers — and it might be pretty to check out the Pine Hollow Arboretum which amazingly enough I’ve never been there. Almost rain free-enough to make me wish I had headed out of town to get camping. Maybe tomorrow but it’s likely going to be cold and windy, and probably still damp. We’ll see come the morning, I got to start working on packing and thinking about West Virginia sooner rather then later.
Good morning! Happy Saturday on this rather Rainy Start to Columbus Day Weekend! Rain showers, at least a few drops of rain here and there and 65 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 63 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 10 am.
I slept in until 5:50 AM when my alarm went off ⏰ got up and make oatmeal-banana pancakes to start off my morning. 😵 Lots of coffee ☕ so I waited a while before heading out in case I had to piss up a storm, and ended up deciding bicycling was a safer option lest I needed to pee 🚽 or the sky opened up with rain. ☔
Today will have showers and possibly a thunderstorm. ⛈ Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Temperature falling to around 57 by 5pm. Southeast wind 7 to 9 mph becoming west in the afternoon. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between 2 and 3 inches possible. Yeah, even though it’s not raining right now, I’m glad I’m not camping in that kind of crap. That’s a lot of rain. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning, remaining cloudy in the afternoon. The high last year was 71 degrees. The record high of 89 was set in 1963.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:44 pm with sun having an altitude of 42° from the due south horizon (-28.9° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.7 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:51 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (257°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (263°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:28 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 56 seconds with dusk around 6:55 pm, which is one minute and 43 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:29 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 56 degrees. The dew point will be 54 degrees. There will be a northwest breeze at 11 mph. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 27 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 50 seconds over today.
Tonight will have showers, mainly before 1am. 🌧 Low of 47 degrees at 5am. Two degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 3rd. Northwest wind around 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. In 2022, we had partly cloudy skies. It got down to 38 degrees. The record low of 21 occurred back in 1964.
For tomorrow, Sunday, things may improve. ⛅ A slight chance of showers before 8am, then a slight chance of showers after noon. Partly sunny, with a high near 59. Southwest wind 8 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. That wind will make it cool but maybe I should plan to do some biking and camping out of town. 🏕 I heard there is some pretty good color in the Catskills. And for Columbus Day, cool but mostly sunny, with a high near 59. South wind around 9 mph. That does seem like an improvement over earlier forecasts. 😀 My parents are out of town this weekend, so I won’t be visiting them this weekend, so I am kind of free to do whatever I want this weekend both days and I don’t have to rush home. I have enough clothes for the upcoming week for work, as it’s going to be cool and I wore t-shirt and shorts all last week, including the day I was off. 👖 I will have to go to the laundromat later in the week though before I head down to West Virginia. Assuming that’s where I end up — if it looks truly cold and wet for the following week I could change my plans to be closer to home, but regardless I plan to camp for the full week. 🤷♂️
I am watching the forecast for both here in Delmar, Wellsboro Penna and Thomas WV, 🌧 and I’m not pleased with how much rain I’m seeing, though 7 days out it really is just a crap shoot. The rain numbers are quite meaningless at this point as so much could change. If it rains on my drive down to WV it’s not the end of the world, I don’t need to take a million different side trips. I’ll skip the Pine Creek Rail Trail 🚂 and the C-O Canal Trail 🚲 until later in the week or not at all, and mostly just drive down, and hunker down at camp. 🚘 Once I’m in West Virginia once camp’s set up the rain is less of an issue. Indeed, the 8-14 day outlook suggests especially in West Virginia in the mid-Atlantic states it might be a fairly dry week but cool. 😎 I’ll take that as long as there isn’t snow. ❄️
I will be bringing my heater, and can hot tent if it’s really cold up in Canaan Heights but I want to have sunny days for hiking and bicycling, plus it makes the scenery better. ♨️ ⛺ I hear they’re getting their first likely frost in the high country this weekend, so by next weekend it should still be close to peak color, without the crowds of Columbus Day Weekend. 👪 There is a reason I waited to later this year, plus it seems like autumn is occurring each year a bit later — and the High Country of West Virginia is more like the Hilltowns climate-wise then the mountains of New York due to the more southerly location.
I found my West Virginia maps including the Monongahela National Forest 🗺 along with the Pine Creek Rail Trail and several other Pennsylvania State Parks I may want to visit on the way down assuming it’s not raining. I am going to print up at work a few small scale maps of Canaan Heights and some other trails in the Otter Creek and Dolly Sods Wilderness at work, 🖨 assuming I can find a printer that still works in the office, lol. 🤣 No-ones going to care if I print up like four pages, assuming that the machine still works as nobody prints much anymore work-related. Then it’s just clothes and supplies to pack for camping. I will bring a fair amount of food with me, but only one cooler as it will be cool enough that most fruits and vegetables don’t need cooling, and I don’t eat nearly as much meat and dairy as I once did. 🥩 🥛 I’m not a vegetarian but healthier, whole foods that are low on saturated fats really don’t need as much refrigeration.
The past few days I’ve been getting a ton of blog traffic 🗺 🤖 I think with people looking for places to camp and hike for the Columbus Day Weekend. One day I pulled in over $10 in ad revenue, and I’m in the low-$30s of what I’ve pulled in over the past week and a half of running ads. I think I will be close to $70 by the end of month, and while I won’t get paid until I rack up $100 in revenue, I think by December 1st I’ll probably be getting my first check 💰 which could easily be above $130 by my own estimates, though it depends how much demand drops for my blog as the winter season approaches. ☃ Traffic usually drops fairly low in December and January. Maybe I need to do more maps relating to skiing and snowmobiling or winter camping locations. 🏕 But it will pick up again come April and May, having looked at my old web logs. It’s good because the $540 check to the web host goes out tomorrow for the next three years. Hopefully, within a year I’ll made enough from blog ads to be made whole, all while enjoying telling my story.
Looking ahead, there are 4 weeks until Daylight Savings Time Ends 🛥️ when the sun will be setting at 5:46 pm with dusk at 6:14 pm. On that day in 2022, we had sunny, warm and temperatures between 71 and 46 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 54 degrees. We hit a record high of 76 back in 1994.
Some crappy tropical storm is coming to crap on another long weekend, wash away the colorful leaves with the driving rain and cold winds to follow in the wake. Next weekend starts my October vacation and it looks like rain so I might drive down to Pennsylvania on Saturday and West Virginia on Sunday rather than spend the weekend exploring the Pine Creek Rail Trail.
Good morning! Yeap, it’s Friday Going into Columbus Day Weekend!, ⛵🍂🌧️Better get my ass to work as the other director took it off and I was disappointed about that until I saw the long weekend forecast. To be fair, I took off the day before Labor Day Weekend and I think that was one of the few nice weekends of the summer. Independence Weekend was super smokey with the wildfire smoke. I really hemmed and hawed about heading out of town this weekend but they’re talking about an inch of rain come Saturday. Then cold windy weather Sunday into Columbus Day.
Cloudy and 62 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 60 degrees. The skies will clear Sunday around 7 am.
Slept in late again until ten minutes before the 5:50 alarm ⏰ but then again I woke up from some crazy dream about rats 🐀 taking over the world because I had that mouse yesterday that I caught and the stupid ads I’ve been seeing on the blog. I was going to cook up quinoa with canned pumpkin 🎃 this morning but decided I wasn’t feeling like carbs this morning I told myself so I had a slice of bread that I made up yesterday plus eggs with all the usual vegetables.
Really thirsty this morning so I had a glass of water before coffee ☕. Since moderating my coffee habit and drinking a glass of water 💦 in the evening I’ve fixed my pissing problems. Now I just got to send the lab 🔬 my $25 for checking my blood and urine. At least I don’t have bladder or prostate cancer it seems. I guess it was good to get checked out it was bad for a few days. 🧑⚕️
Today will have a chance of showers, mainly after 3pm. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 71 degrees at 2pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 25th. Maximum dew point of 64 at 12pm. South wind 8 to 10 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 75 degrees. The record high of 90 was set in 1900. There was a dusting of snow in 1954.❄
Decent enough of a morning to ride to work 🚲 though I’ll probably ride the express bus 🚍 home as it might rain by afternoon and I plan to bring my computer 🖥 home for the weekend. Out walking 🚶 the usual loop around the High School 🚸 and then I’ll shower 🚿.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:44 pm with sun having an altitude of 42.3° from the due south horizon (-28.5° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 6.6 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:53 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (258°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (264°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:30 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 55 seconds with dusk around 6:57 pm, which is one minute and 43 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:31 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 69 degrees. The dew point will be 64 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 9 mph. Tomorrow will have 11 hours and 30 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 50 seconds over today.
Tonight will have a chance of showers before 11pm, then a chance of showers and thunderstorms between 11pm and 2am, then showers likely and possibly a thunderstorm after 2am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 62 degrees at 5am. 18 degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 64 at 6pm. South wind around 7 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. In 2022, we had partly cloudy skies. It got down to 48 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 1986.
Tomorrow will have showers and possibly a thunderstorm. ☔ Temperature rising to near 65 by 11am, then falling to around 57 during the remainder of the day. Southeast wind 7 to 10 mph becoming northwest in the afternoon. Going to have to close the windows by midday. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 71 degrees. The record high of 89 was set in 1963.
Looking ahead to Sunday, a chance of showers, mainly before 2pm. Partly sunny, 🌤️with a high near 58. West wind 13 to 17 mph, with gusts as high as 28 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. Typical average high for the weekend is 65 degrees.
Looking ahead, there are 7 weeks until Buy Nothing Day 🛍️ when the sun will be setting at 4:27 pm with dusk at 4:57 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2022, we had partly sunny and temperatures between 49 and 24 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 46 degrees. We hit a record high of 70 back in 2014.
