This time I was less impressed with the mountains in West Virginia. While certainly bigger than the hills I woke up to this morning camping at Long Pond, they just don’t seem the way they once did in West Virginia.
Maybe it’s because it’s my fifth trip to West Virginia and the scenery isn’t as new and impressive. Visiting Dolly Sods from the much higher base elevation from the West – namely Canaan Valley Wildlife Refuge and Forest Road 80 Freeland Road made the 4,000 summit less impressive. Plus I didn’t get to the real high country – Spruce Knob Mountain area a dozen miles south.
But also looking at Canaan and Backbone Mountain from Olson Firetower made me rethink how impressive the landscape really is. Some of the peaks in that part of West Virginia while maybe high in total elevation are rather flat peaked and modest in elevation gain. I guess if I had been more around the Allegheny Front, North Mountain and Backbone Mountain from Bears Rocks in West Virginia I might have had an alternative take.
I don’t know. But maybe my dreams of the impressive hills and hollows of West Virginia where just that – more myth then reality. The truth is I see a lot of the hilltowns of Albany County or even the hollows of Schoharie County in West Virginia. The people there aren’t much different than the people I grew up knowing. The trailers, junk cars and ramshackle homestead all look familiar. Even much of Dolly Sods and Canaan Mountain remind me of parts of the Taconics and Berkshire Mountains, Canaan Heights, WV has a striking resemblance to Canaan, NY especially if you visit the high point at Harvey Hill State Forest.
My relationship with snow is complicated living in the suburbs.
Snow rarely impacts my commuteliving in the suburbs as the busses run whether it’s sunny and 50 or it’s blowing deep snow. They do a good job if clearing the sidewalks where I live so I can’t complain about that either. I do worry sometimes after severe winter storms about losing power, although my apartment is on enough of a main line that the last time I had an extended power outage was during the ice storm over a decade ago. The big issue here is when I loose power there is no heat in the freezing weather.
An off grid cabin wouldn’t risk losing grid power from the snow. With wood heat electric isn’t required, just throw another log on the fire. I would have to keep an eye on the propane though so I wouldn’t run out of hot water for the shower and dish washing though. Digging out the driveway, cleaning off the solar panels and getting wood from the stack outdoors might be work but I could always come back inside, especially on days when I don’t have to work. A generator might have to be fired up to maintain the voltage of the battery on cold snowy dark days but hopefully with enough storage I wouldn’t have to use it much. Going out to the outhouse might not be fun but I guess I could always build a shitter bucket and dump it out when I’m outside.
While I like the security and warmth of living off grid, I don’t really enjoy driving in the snow. I think I’m fairly good at it, and I’m a careful driver but snow driving is a long slow slog as your speeds are greatly reduced. I expect when I own my own land and have to commute to an out of town area – there will be some long trips home – although I still would use public transportation to get to and from the city center to avoid traffic and parking headaches. I would probably get studded snow tires and maybe chains for my truck. Or have an old clunker that I don’t care if it gets beat up in the snow. I could always leave my truck by the town road and take a four wheeler or snowmobile out there.
I’m fine with snow for now as long as I don’t lose power. I’m saving money with my cheap apartment on the bus line. But it would sure be nice to some day have my own land and have a nice wood stove to stay warm along and have the security of an off grid system without fear of losing electric lighting or heat.
There is no reason that I should have not expected, I mean the forecast did call for rain and mild temperatures last night. And I’m not complaining about that as it feels pretty warm inside but I was hoping to ride this morning in the sun either out to the Arboretum or Five Rivers. Maybe later and maybe I’ll check out the Sportsmart later in the search of skis but I know chances are good I won’t end up getting any.
Friday came and went. 🥧 It was a busy day with the pie contest and then I spent several hours tagging people in adult care homes in the database at work and grabbing other data on volunteer firefighters from some tax rolls on Long Island. And working with the operators to implement some complicated targets that were good, rational targets, but complicated in implementation even if they were good as they ensure communications get in front of relevant parties. The pie contest was fun, I was surprised almost all of my queche went and gone. Apparently queche eaters are a big thing – it no longer has the stigma that avocado 🥑 toast has nowadays. Eggs 🥚 are cheap again, and I wanted something I could make up from home.
There was a request that came in at 4:57 PM, 🖥️ and it was a good laugh not because it was bad but because it was a bit complicated to implement, and it as the weekend. I told the assigned operator it would wait until Monday. I didn’t say it but I was thinking, what the hell have a wrathed on my agency? Truth is though it makes sense to pull the suggested records – but not until Monday. It’s amazing how much things have changed in two years, and how much data I’ve been able to acquire from private vendor, public andgovernment sources. The parcels program is amazing, and towns are required are required to post tax rolls. And there is so much data you can gleam from and project just by family names or knowing what neighborhood one lives in, or the age or style of their home. Toblers First Law of Geography – “everything is related to everything else, but near things are more related than distant things“– is such a powerful concept.
I left the office a little after 5 PM and wandered my way through the bumpy ol’ streets of the south end, riding in my ol jacked up truck with my cowboy hat 🤠 listening to Louis Armstrong’s What a Wonderful World, followed by John Rich’s Shutting Down Detroit and Marmalade’s Reflections of My Life. I’m changing, arranging everything. The news headlines after the big meet up between the Trumpster and Mayor Mamadani just put a big grin 😀 on my face. Things are fucked up in this world, 🌍 but we’ll make it through it somehow. It’s great to see how much my agency has changed over past two years leading it- since I’ve made it a priority to link data together, script things, take full advantage of what we know about constituents. Things that were done on a small scale manually, can certainly be expanded and run in automated fashion.
Stocked up at Walmart so I can avoid the traffic around the stores through Thanksgiving 🦃 though on Black Friday I may have to skip buy nothing in favor of getting a few supplies on the way up to camp. With I had gotten more hot sauce in big plastic bottle, and maybe olive oil – both are lower in my pantry then is good – but I should have enough in my pantry and except for the olive oil neither is essential. Used a lot of olive oil with the queche I made for work so it wouldn’t stick and would taste good, 😋 more then I would use usually use. Now I’m thinking for the Christmas Party 🎅 at work I’ll have to to make those cranberry pancakes 🥞 I make at home with some Greek yogurt. I feel like that would be a hit.
At times I am brought back to Horseshoe Lake a month ago, smoking weed and listening to Karen Dalton’s Are You Leaving for the Country. The sound of the major pentatonic scale and sharpness and backwood sound of her voice. The feeling of cold and dampness and mud and dirt, climbing down Lows Ledge. Just taking it slow, noting the many days left in week before the autumn trip came to it’s logical conclusion. How time just seemed to slow down into a cold, damp haze.
Seems hard to imagine a month came and went from those days, now how distant the wilderness really is. How deep that wilderness is but accessible yet quiet this time of year. There is something so fun about just smoking a lot of pot, riding your mountain bike all day out to scenic, remote locations, even in the rain. Not having to worry about driving or even recycling your trash as the evening bonfire will take care of it. As you watch the bright flicker of the fire. Even if your drenched in a cold, damp haze as is so common in autumn months.
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