1,201 miles, 77.4 gallons of fuel and 24 hours and 47 minutes of driving the 2023 West Virginia road trip comes to an end. Average speed 48.8 mph, fuel economy 15.9 mpg. Numbers adjusted for the 35s.
The heating game
Every autumn I play the game of how long I can go without turning the heat on in my apartment. 😨I actually like keeping things colder but I know at some point I must turn the heat on to keep the pipes from freezing up.
Except in the coldest weather, I usually keep the heat in the low 50s, only turning it up to 60 in the evening when I’m home to be comfortable come the morning. 👏The thermostat often overrides as it’s located downstairs near the heater and heat rises upstairs. Come the coldest time of the year I might leave it constantly around 55 or 60 to ensure it remains warm.
Figuring that I eventually will forgo centralized heating when I own my own house, I doubt I’ll ever get used to keeping it real warm as fires often die down during the night. 🔥Plus keeping it cold can help save energy, cut climate emissions and reduce utility bills.
Listening to the accents 👂
One of the things I like to do while traveling is to listen to the local accents, especially of working folk. That said, the once distinctive working class Appalachian accent really has faded away more and more into a generic rural accent similar to what you might hear in small towns in virtually any part of America today.
I think the small town accent is furthered by country music that is largely nationalized these days, the rural identity nowadays more important than being identified by any one specific part of the country today.
November is my favorite time of the year 🦃
November is my favorite time of the year 🦃
If you ask most people, outside of the most dedicated deer hunters, probably November wouldn’t rank on their short list of the best months of the year. But it really is my favorite.
November is that time of year typically before snow is on the ground and things are icy and slippery. It’s a time when the leaves are off the trees and the woods lays bare for all to see. Wildlife is busy gathering food in preparation for the long winter ahead – or simply heading south as is the case with the birds and geese.
The trees gone bare reveal many a vista hidden by the leaves of summer. You can see contours of the woods once hidden, the old farm garbage dump in the gully. The deer are in their rut, carelessly wandering around the woods mostly looking for does to impregnate. The air has such a nice cool but refreshing feel. It’s so nice to be able to put that vest back on again.
With colder weather upon us, folks fire up their woodstoves and outdoor wood boilers, giving small towns across the area that very homey back woods smell of wood smoke. Farmers who have harvested their crops are busy applying manure, hoping to fertilize the ground before its frozen. It can be tangy and pungent but it’s part of the season.
I like the cool long nights of November in the woods. I like wearing my vest, sitting down by the campfire. I like how quiet the woods is, the starry nights that start early and how the moonlight shines through the trees. Or the deep blue skies and the browns and grays of the autumn months.
One thing that always surprises me is that the Mid Hudson library system has no books on Geographical Information Systems
One thing that always surprises me is that the Mid Hudson library system has no books on Geographical Information Systems. 📚
Seems so odd with GIS being such a big topic these days and powerful GIS software like QGIS widely available – with mapping, GPS and aerial photography such a big part of our lives today. YouTube, free web classes and internet documentation is great but it sure would be nice if they had books that one could read about at the library.
All and all it was a good vacation. ⛺ 🚵
I mean I do wish it was longer and didn’t start and end in the rain ☔.
Last Sunday night and Monday was cool to start out the trip and Friday had clouds most of the day but for the most part the weather was excellent for late October. 🎃 Leaves were mostly done in the West Virginia high country but thats to be expected at this point. Some of the hollows and more protected areas had more color 🍂 as did Maryland.
The C-O Trail was beautiful and neat, especially the Paw Paw Tunnel. The backside of Dolly Sods was fun to explore but it was hazy. Table Rock was nice, especially the bike ride 🚲 along Canaan Loop Road. Got a lot of good use of the bike. Big Red treated me well, 🛻and it was relaxing. I do wish I wasn’t so dog tired each evening or time went by so quickly ⏳ and I would have had more time to read 📖 but I can do that back home 🏡.
I also do wish maybe I could have seen more of West Virginia and Pennsylvania but there was only so much time, 🚘 travel time takes a lot and it was rather nice to have the same campsite ⛺ as a home base, six out of the eight days, allowing me to maximize the most of the 10 ½ hours of daylight. So many more places to explore and things do if only more time. ⏳
The great autumn road trip ends much like it started in the rain ☔
Good morning! Happy Sunday. Time to get up in a bit before it’s real wet then head home. Rain showers and 46 degrees at Long Pond State Forest in Smithfield Flats, NY. ☁ There is a north breeze at 8 mph. 🍃.
Back in New York State. I decided to drive all the way back to New York yesterday from Paw Paw as I figured it would mean back tracking to get back to Interstate 99 and heading north. 🛣️ Rain is expected before day break in Wellsboro so I figured that at any rate, not worth the back tracking and the $10 fee to camp in Pennsylvania. ⛺ At Long Pond State Forest which is two hours from home l figured that the rain would start later so maybe a quick breakfast and coffee ☕ 🥣 before the rain picked up.
Figured it would be interesting to come back via 81 and see at least the skyline of Hagerstown Maryland, Harrisburg, Wilkes Barre and Scranton Penna 🌆 but truth be told by the time I reached Hazleton it was dark, and from Hagerstown to the I-78 and I-81 split in Jonestown, traffic was much too heavy for ones eyes 👀 to leave the road for much scenic viewing. People often suggest taking Interstate 81 to West Virginia but I have to say at this point I don’t recommend it. 🚙 Too much traffic, especially truck 🚚 traffic compared to the leisurely drive along Interstate 99.
Truth is though I was bored with taking Interstate 99, I’ve done it several times in the past years to West Virginia. 🗻 It’s scenic but after a while the towns are all the same. Somehow I was hoping that 81 would change things up. Same thing with US 6 in Penna. It’s slow, and long, the farms 🚜 and rural homesteads 🏡 🐐 are still the same but with fewer burn barrels 🛢 as a decade or so ago. All that plastic shit stinks when you burn it, lol 😂.
Somehow I just had it in my mind that Interstate 81 would shave miles and hours off the trip. 🚘 But it’s really not that much of a time or milage savings. And while I’m only two hours from home compared to 3 1/2 that extra hour and a half got tacked onto yesterday’s drive, 🌃 meaning several hours of driving in the darkness and arriving at Long Pond State Forest at 8:30 pm rather than before six o’clock as I had planned. I had no cell service 📶 in Paw Paw so it was just a wild assed guess on the distance to Asaph Run or County Bridge compared to Long Pond.
The moonlight helped, as did getting up and walking 🚶 around the rest area near Wilkes Barre and ultimately getting a box of five hour energy shots 🤪 which not only made me awake for driving kept me up half the night. Almost stopped and got dinner at Dennys in Hazleton but I decided I was running so far behind schedule, best to have some energy shots, hard boiled eggs and bananas and push forward. ☕ Regardless, I made it to camp safely and expect a nice drive the rest of the way home. 🙏
I was pretty wired from the energy shot ⚡ last night and it was a pretty evening with the full moon 🌕 so I stayed up to midnight.🦆 Listened to the geese well into the night honking and every time I walked to the lake the beaver 🦫 would jump back in with a big splash 💦.
Today will have showers through 9 am, then rain after 10am. 🌧 High of 46 degrees at 6am. 10 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 23rd. North wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 63 degrees. The record high of 77 was set in 1946. 3.8 inches of snow fell back in 2011.❄
Coffee ☕ and cream of wheat is cooking on the stove. It’s now just the final two hours home 🏡. Probably need to get a bit more fuel ⛽ and I’m likely going to stop and get apples 🍏 at Annuto’s in Oneonta. They open at nine 9⃣ but I don’t necessarily have to be there right at nine. And maybe other produce like Butternut Squash. 🍆 They have quite the selection of farm products. No doughnuts 🍩 though, even though they were good to start off vacation as a special treat. 😋
Then get home, unpack, shower 🚿 for the first time in nine days 👃 and knead bread 🍞 and soak peas for pea soup. Maybe go to the laundromat and buy produce at Hannaford, or that could wait until Monday.
Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:40 pm with sun having an altitude of 34° from the due south horizon (-36.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 8.9 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:14 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (246°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (253°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:54 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 2 seconds with dusk around 6:21 pm, which is one minute and 22 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waining Gibbous 🌖 Moon in the east-northeast (63°) at an altitude of 0° from the horizon, 235,306 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:56 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 43 degrees. There will be a north-northeast breeze at 6 mph. Tomorrow will have 10 hours and 27 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 36 seconds over today.
Rode about twenty miles of the Chesapeake and Ohio outside Paw Paw and then went into the village on my bike yesterday. Not a lot of note in the village that I saw but maybe I rode the wrong road. 🚲 That said, the Paw Paw Tunnel is really neat. 🚉 Not only can you hike – bike the canal tunnel when I was there people were kayaking in it. 🛶 Rode 19 miles or about three hours including breaks. Stopped at the Capacon Overlook 🏞 after driving WV 9 which is as curvy as you might expect any good ol West Virginia road to be going through the mountains. Phil Ochs wasn’t wrong when he sung about the roads would wind and wind through the hills of West Virginia.
Tonight will have showers before 2am, then rain likely after 2am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 42 degrees at 7pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 14th. Calm wind becoming southeast around 5 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. 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 28 degrees. The record low of 20 occurred back in 1969.
Next it’s watching the forecast for next week. 🐮 I’m still thinking about a trip out to Madison County either next week or the weekend after for four days, tacking a day onto the Election Day Weekend or Veterans Day Weekend. ⛺ I know it seems like it’s coming on right after vacation but rifle season 🦌 and Thanksgiving is right around the corner and who knows when we’ll get our first snowfall and those areas inaccessible. 🌨 Winter’s coming.
Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ when the sun will be setting at 4:23 pm with dusk at 4:53 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2022, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 31 and 20 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 40 degrees. Winter’s coming. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1966.
The blog for the first month made a little over $80 a month or so worth in advertising. 🖥 Figuring th hosting and domains work out to $17 a month, its a nice little check. Won’t make me rich and it’s possible that I could potentially squeeze additional revenue by more obnoxious ads or changing the content on my blog but I want to maintain absolute editorial control over my blog. 📝 That’s one of the reasons I maintain a personal blog and don’t just do social media.
