Reading the Nature of Geographic Information textbook reminds me of both the pros and cons of formal education…
At times it’s mad cold and it will be even colder camping tomorrow. Noticing and admiring the low sun angle, light smells of cattle on the air. You know how much I love the country on a clear winters day without snow and a low sun angle. I like the rich brown colors and how everything is so crisp.
Realizing that this will be the last time likely hiking here until spring as I won’t have a vehicle once Red retires in little over a week. Every time I get behind the wheel, it’s a flood of memories. The many small towns and back roads. How fast the time goes. Can you believe that next week will be 2026 and the second half of the decade?
It seems like such a loss, sadness to be leaving the countryside behind. No more drives to just see the back roads. But it’s temporary. I know I will get another truck after Red. I did more studying of dealer inventories and there is more options for regular cab long bed 4x4s then I saw at first. And if that’s the truck I decide to get it’s fine to get a ride to wherever the truck is or even have the truck shipped. It’s likely what I’ll be using to see America prior to retirement.
I wonder if decades after the NYS Thruway is abandoned, they’ll save some of the bridges and piers as a historical site and turn it into a biking trail called the “The Old NYS Thruway Historic Preserve”.
And they’ll erect history signs that show pictures of cranes erecting it, and old cars driving on it with tail fins.
I am always fascinated by history and what is historic compared to just old or garbage. But maybe that’s because not all old things are relevant or add value to society today. The old hollow full of broken cans and bottles, junk appliances, tires and partially rotted garbage ashes on the farm probably doesn’t tell much of interest. It’s either an ecological problem or the backfill our cities are built on depending on how you look at it.
History really is valuable only to the extent it advises us on how to live our lives better today by explaining alternative ways of doing things and provide a better understanding of how we got to where we are today. Sometimes old ways of doing things are good for certain situations like homesteading and heritage breeds. Or when the current methods are providing to be inferior or failing. But often old ways of doing things disappeared because they were inefficient, wasteful or failing. People often forget how bad many of the policies and practices of yesteryear once were. Maybe that’s part of the value of history.
Ever since I learned a week ago that I would be losing Big Red in a week from now, I’ve really struggled to stay asleep at 3 or 4 AM. At least so far when I’ve cued up podcasts to listen to on these sleepless nights, I haven’t been assaulted by messages of “See What You Need is Better Help!” and “So-Fat Matteresses Give You the Sleep You Deserve, You Professional Asshole with too Much Money and Not Enough Plastic Garbage to Recycle.”
I get so annoyed by all the advertising and commercial products being rammed down my throat, 🤯 that doesn’t understand me or what I want to spend my money on, or how I see the world. I find myself waking at night, reading about underbody protection and coatings, F-250 pickups, and swearing at myself about how hard it is to find a basic regular cab long bed heavy-duty truck, but maybe a step up from dog-dish hubcaps, black poverty plastic and fleet white. Really the only place locally that sells them is Metro Ford, and they have that one truck I like but I’m not going to buy during the winter. 🛻 If it’s really what I want, I can special order or get somebody to take me to the town that smells like cow shit where the local dealer has one on his lot. 🐮 Honestly, I just don’t want to fight with the stealer who will insist what I really want is an F-150 High Tech 2080 Pickup with Extended Cab or maybe a Ford Maverick. No, if I was going to get a pissy little blown-engine, I mean Turbo Charged mini-truck with a quad cab, I’d just get a Mexican Tacomas that are so popular these days at least in Vermont. Fords are fine, but quality with American vehicles is best found by simple and old fashioned, as Detroit when it comes to Technology, you know you’re buying junk.
It’s silly to get so upset or feel urgent, as I’m not replacing Red until April. 🧂 And I’m going to build the rig I want, but I want to knows the ins-and-outs of various engines, but I do like the simple reliability of 6.8L big block Ford Mini Godzillas. Maybe it’s because I spend too much time watching YouTube and staying up watching mechanics bitch out all the new technology the greenies have forced on us. 🌍 I mean I used to be an environmentalist, and I should care about fuel consumption ⛽ but I just want to build a reliable rig that I can explore America in comfort in, camp in various National Forests, and if it uses somewhat more fuel but gets me and my gear there reliably without issue, then all the better. I hate hotels and campgrounds. 🏕️ Maybe I was annoyed that the red F-250 I fell in love with didn’t have the off-road package, but I realize the factory skid plates are usually crap, and if I have issues with shit getting ripped off the truck, I should actually give Golub Welding a call to weld real steel shit plates, I mean skid plates on the new truck. And honestly, I am not going to a big assed, over priced F-250 far off gravel roads and smash it up when I have a mountain bike which would be a hell of a lot more fun to bang my knees up on, and easier to turn around when there is a big-assed timber on the road. And broken spokes on a mountain bike are a lot cheaper to fix. 🚴
You might think I’m totally over Red at this point with visions of that Super duty in my head, 🛻 but I’m not. Only a week left of his life at least as far as I’m concerned. Midnight strikes the end of next Wednesday, his inspection will be expired and his plates will be removed. I won’t have a vehicle until spring. It’s fine, I don’t drive much in winter and it’s not worth it to have a salt-encrusted truck. I want to enjoy the remaining hours of him, but I’m also freaked out about how bad the frame is at this point.💥 I got the text message that I have a dentist appointment on January 7th at 7 AM, which is fine but that means I’ll either be riding my bike in the dark and cold and ice – or take a very early bus over there. 🦷 And honestly, I am taken back by spending all this money on a truck that at least in my mind once the money is out of my bank account is permanently gone, even if in exchange I get the truck that I’ll be able to see more of America 🇺🇸 in, more cow towns with burn barrels, hills and hollers, and little campsites on the road sides. People talk about depreciation as if a vehicle has any value beside it’s utilitarian use, I guess can sell your car for some money, but I ain’t a businessman. Mostly I’ll be happy with F-250 if I get many years of use out of it, and they don’t charge me at the landfill to bury it’s remains. I could get used, and everybody says that’s a good value proposition but I fear getting somebody else’s lemon 🍋. Nobody buys used food, well unless of course as the Facebook Advertisement says, did “you buy the city fertilizer for your farm”? 💩 PFOAs lawsuit here! Humanure is good stuff if composed right, though I get their are concerned about biosolids from processed sewage treatment waste from pharmaceuticals to PFOAs, though I think that is mostly overstated. 20 years ago, nobody thought they were the great threat to America until the trial lawyers got involved, the Ralph Naders of world who also wrecked all the new pickups with their auto-shutoff.
So yeah, that’s what’s been on my mind. 💭 I was looking at the Styrofoam egg carton I got from Wally World this morning, 🥚 as I made my eggs up with frozen broccoli 🥦 and onions, thinking about that distinctively pungent smell of the styrene in fire 🔥 and realizing soon I’ll be recycling ♻️ plastic and landfilling the rest, as no more traveling after tomorrow until I get my new truck. I still need to ask my neighbor if I offer him cash so I can use his bin, otherwise I guess I can find roadside trash can and or save the stuff outside until spring when I get to transfer station. 🗑️ I just hate landfills and fake recycling, rather save it for fire starters. I’m not going to subscribe for four months when I generate so little trash and can easily take to transfer station or use it for fire starting once I get another truck. I haven’t done eggs for quite a while, preferring most mornings homemade pancakes with either cornmeal and onions or oatmeal and carrots with fruits or cranberries in the batter. 🥞 But it is good to change it up. I’ll buy eggs in paper going forward, and I really should get milk delivered in returnable glass. If I’m going car free before getting my SuperDuty, I should really try sustainability 💚 and living the green life I profess to support while smoking all that grass, listening to Arlo Guthrie and swearing I’ll never buy a plastic house whether or not it smells like cow shit or a Honda SUV. Honestly, the only Honda I would want to own is maybe a Side-by-Side. The japs make good ATVs and UTVs which are good for hauling bags of minerals out to cows and mineral bags full of colorful junk mail 📨 circulaters, plastic wrappers and empty plastic jugs to the burning barrels. 🛢️ 🐮
So yeah, that’s what’s pretty much what been keeping me up at night, 🛏️ dreams of Big Red trucks burning shit up in wilderness. Kept me asleep after waking up in middle of night until 7 AM. Which reminds me now I got to get the store 🛒 and get food and supplies for camping 🏕️ and before Red is done today, before they close down for Christmas Eve 🎄 and then out to my parents house to join them for Christmas 🤶. I don’t know how many more Christmases we will have together, may not be many more, as time goes by so quickly and it’s unpredictable. I would have never thought Red would have a set retirement date, even though I had planned to retire him a while back in April in preparation for my trip out to Upper Peninsula. We are having lasagna as family 👪 dinner this Christmas, we might do another family get together on weekend if I’m around, though I expect to spend the next few days after Christmas out in Madison County, assuming there isn’t too much snow and ice. 🌨️ That wind is really howling this morning, Going to be cold, but I want to enjoy Red one last weekend before he’s done. As a week from now, I’ll be shifting him in Park 🅿️ one last time, turning off the key, grabbing a screw driver 🪛 and pulling the plates to return to DMV. And it will be over. I will be taken back to five years ago, when my mom was in the hospital after her heart gave out, 💔 although after two months and several more weeks at a nursing home, she did come home and recover. But next time it won’t be like that. I know it. Just like that once or twice, something similar happened with Red. But then after false warnings, ⚠️ and what seemless endless time, things come to an end just like they will with Big Red. 🛻 You just move on in life, I miss both Frank Skartados and John Wolcott after their passing, but you find new things in life after the people and things you have have to leave behind.
It was nice riding in today to work on my mountain bike. Light dusting of snow, flurries. The evening though I got pelted by some sleet riding in the wind and dark but it was fine, the local bus got me home. Saved a buck thirty bus fare by only riding one way, plus enjoyed the beauty of the rail trail.
With the holidays, 🎅 my office is closed through Monday. I’ll go in next week on Monday, but I’ll probably leave early on New Years Eve to take Big Red out for one last spin, visit Walmart and then park him in his final resting spot at my parents house until spring, when I can pull off and unpack and camping equipment and see if I can sell or scrap him.
But in the meantime, tomorrow morning I want to run to Walmart 🛒, get supplies for camping and continue to stock up so I have as much supplies as possible before Red is done and going there will only by bike. Then I am driving out to Mom and Dad to join them for Christmas Eve Dinner. 🤶 First time we’ve been together for Christmas in two years as last year I had COVID and the previous year Mom had the flu and I spent Christmas at the State Horse Camp. 🐴
Plan to head out camping early on Christmas Day, get a good fire going up in woods, 🔥 and enjoy the beauty of Christmas in the wilderness. Looks like we might have a decent amount of snow on Friday, and while I would like to stay until Sunday in the woods, it might turn to ice on Sunday, so it be best to come home on Saturday. I don’t want to camp too far from plowed roads, just in case we get a lot of snow, so I’m digging through the deep snow. Not going to worry about idling and wearing down the engine, or burning too much fuel up, ⛽ as Big Red’s final day is less then a week away.
Internet advertisers have discovered I’m interested in underbody coating methods and sprays. 🖌️ Basically the only thing really worth it is regular lamoline coatings, sheep oil from the advice of my friends and what the internet suggests, but rust is a big problem around here, and there are certainly coatings out there, some better then others. But a lot of scams too, really the factory zinc application is what matters in practice. GM doesn’t do a good job at it, but a few years earlier Toyota was really bad, and Dodges and Ford used to famously bad. Man I can remember how rusty at least the rocker panels and rear quarter panels used to get on the old Dodges. I think they’re a lot better now. Fords use a lot of aluminum body panels, which don’t have the rust through holes, and frames are decently well dipped, but it’s tough here in New York for at least pickups, though it seems like Toyota’s and Honda’s little cars don’t show much visible rot even if they are bad on the underside. Honestly, I don’t think I would object that much to my truck smelling like Fluid Film.
Well I’m going to head under my covers in my bed and heated blanket to get warm. ♨️ Soon enough I’ll be doing my only chance ot winter camp, before that’s done for the year with Red going into retirement much too soon. 🛻 He’s been a good truck, but yeah, let’s be honest, that Red F-250 regular cab long bed 4×4 has my name written all over it. While not the most popular Ford, a number of dealers have them, and if I have to order one or get a ride to some hick town 50 miles away to take delivery in April, so it will be. I was looking at my neighbor’s little Toyota Tacoma, and it’s not for me. Maybe if I was a little guy, made less money, or didn’t spend many weekends each year camping out the back of my truck, I’d think differently.
Merry Christmas!
