We made it to Election Day 2025 and soon enough it will be the mid-terms, but that’s kind of getting ahead of us all. I still want to get to Michigan and Wisconsin before then along with many other things. But first, today looks like a stunningly beautiful day, though maybe a bit cool with the lake breeze. I’ll ride a bit once the sun rises before getting down on other adventures for the day.
I am not looking forward to that long slog back home, along the Adirondack Northway in the dark but I might pop one of those caffeine pills and finish up Bill McKibbean’s latest audio book I got out of the library – Here Comes the Sun. I don’t always agree with everything McKibbean says – he’s gone from being a degrowth advocate to an industrial solar advocate – it’s good to hear his perspective. I do agree solar in rural areas is better then building more houses and bringing more people in. Solar panels don’t complain about hog shit, gun fire or garbage burning barrels or try to change your community in local elections. Truth is we need more electricity, and how we generate it up to debate. Solar seems really sprawling and high impact, but compared to all the acres people farm, even a full build out of solar is not that enormous. Solar isn’t like residential development, there isn’t toilets to be flushed or electricity to be developed or chemical lawns.
But first a morning ride and seeing how bitterly cold that wind really is. I guess bundle up, the sun will help a lot. Figure it’s best to enjoy the fresh tangy cow-shit air before those days come and go, the memories of my college years, and the mountains and great vistas of the North Country. Tomorrow it’s back to work, the buses and city folk. Honestly, I don’t mind talking to the people up here, though it’s shocking how impoverished some of the people just outside the city really are. I tend to often romanticize their lives, thinking how much better it is compared to the high consumption suburbanite, still I don’t know. Hogs and venison and rabbits for meat, hog shit for growing veggies and cannabis, a burn barrel and going to scrap yard/dump once a year for unburnable trash, and solar for electricity. Really that’s the life, though only a few up here really are truly lucky to live that life. Got have some plain Greek yougurt with the nuts and other crap food they have that continental breakfast downstairs at 6 AM. All wrapped in plastic and paper. But the coffee is good. Yet before jumping on the day, today looks like a stunningly beautiful day, though maybe a bit cool with the lake breeze. I’ll ride a bit once the sun rises before getting down on other adventures for the day.
Yesterday, I spent some time riding along Lake Champlain at the Cumberland Head Bay State Park, and it was great with the water levels being so low in the lake and sand well packed. It was fun, watching the sun rise and waves crash along the lake shore. Plan to do that again this morning before things get too busy. When I got back to my truck, there was a tree rat violently crashing around in the back of the cap. The only thing I can think of is he climbed in when I was unloading my bike. Didn’t do any damage but I’ll have to clean up all the squirrel crap before I go camping next time. Now that’s some wild ass North Country shit, says the boy who hits the town with a cowboy hat on, sniffing the smells of silage and cow poop – and paper plant at least in Plattsburgh. Yes, you spell it with an “h” at the end, you non-locals, lol.
Watching the weather for next weekend, and maybe Madison County won’t be a thing with heavy rain expected on Sunday and a washout for most of the rest of week. I guess the next option for travel is after Thanksgiving – maybe the East Branch – as I don’t necessarily want to camp in the Southern Zone during Big Game Season. I kind of like the solitude of not having cell service and being disconnected from the news cycle for a few days. Maybe there will be snow or maybe not. Really hard to say. Or it’s possible the forecast could change. Only time will tell. Certainly this time of year camping the evenings are much longer. More time for drinking and smoking pot I guess, and watching shit burn.
This past weekend when I at Plattsburgh I spent a few minutes in the evening going for a stroll around Plattsburgh State, briefly sticking my head into the Feinberg Library and the Angel Campus Center. Hawkins Hall was locked as it was the weekend so I did not go in – funny enough thought I might still have a key to the building that I was supposed to return decades ago.
I can’t say though that I ever spent that much time at Plattsburgh State, despite my status as alumni and my B.A. degree on Plattsburgh State paper. Between the Assembly Internship and transferring in the bulk of my credits from other colleges, I only was here two autumn semesters. Still I have memories of the time spent here, and I was noticing the Green Fee (the “Energy” part of language was dropped in the give and take of legsilating) that I helped author and push through is being used for investment and improvement in Nature Trail at Rugar Woods all these years later.
Plattsburgh State still is a lot of fun to explore and get around on a bike. Rugar Woods has seen a fair bit of development with a disc golf and the former Rugar Street landfill now sporting the Chip Cummings Baseball Field on top. Officially the trail doesn’t go to the still very dilapidated Imperial Mills Dam, though that may change when the state installs fish ladders over the dam. Real pretty in the autumn colors. People were saying a lot has changed in Plattsburgh over the past twenty years, though at least in my mind the changes are a lot more subtle then I might have thought.
I’ve heard college students have dwindled in recent years – the state college is no longer affordable and monied students don’t want to go to rag-tag Plattsburgh. They demolished Adirondack and Banks Hall, though I never was in either buildings, so I hardly missed them. But at least they still have the classic funky lamps at SUNY Plattsburgh Library, and much of the mid-century Brutalist architecture remains in tack. I put my cowboy hat for a while the other day while I was poking around the city, just for memories of what was.
Before I leave Plattsburgh for who knows how long again, I might stop by the Political Science department to see if any of the professors I know are still around. Probably Dr. Harvey Schantz is the only one left but a lot of people come and go over two decades. I don’t even know if Dr. Tom Konda is still alive but he is certainly long retired. A lot depends on time and if I can get parking nearby the college. I am trying to be gentle on my elderly truck suspension and not push it too hard.
In some ways, it’s hard to put myself back in college. The world was a different place two decades and I was somewhat different of a person. A lot more idealistic but also ignorant. And I certainly undervalued the local scenery and beauty, though to this day, I still love the rural and expansive mountain landscapes. The Adirondack Northway is a treat on the eyes when you drive it. And touring that off-grid cabin and that New Land Trust cabin was definately something that got me thinking about my future, something I want to do some day once my years of work and toil – and investing – add up to something great.
Plattsburgh is a fun town. Not that I would want to live in city or anywhere near it, but living within commute distance to a reasonable place where you can supplies and services is a good thing. The deep rural of Adirondacks makes for much more difficult living when there is not a full-service grocery, a Walmart, healthcare and other services within a half hour drive away. Maybe not New York State due to my years working in sausage factory of Albany, with the gun laws and burn ban, but it’s good to know such places like Plattsburgh exist at least in my mind. While I spent so little time in Plattsburgh, I did really love the brief time I spent up here. Too bad there isn’t more roadside camping opportunities close to Plattsburgh, or I might come up here more.
Sometimes I travel for work and have to stay in hotels. Which are fine, but they resemble every woke suburbanite house I’ve ever been in. They are clean but also kind of not. The continental breakfasts are crap, with only sugar-coated cereals and yogurts, maybe the best option is the whole wheat bagle and the scrambled eggs with hot sauce. I mean the places I stay in aren’t awful but also aren’t exactly nice or desirable places to stay in. I get it hotels for most people are places to get drunk, have sex, and stay while on vacation or work travel. Which is fine I guess. Functionally they work, but they make me cringe when I see other peoples dirt, all the trash and debris from the disposable everything and paper plate continental breakfasts, etc. And all the fake modern building interiors.
Honestly, I don’t like them. People make fun of me camping in the wilderness in the cold, the rain, the snow, but it sure beats being in any city. It’s much better to be wild and free, away from all that plastic and the garbage dumps, doing your own thing relatively unconstrained. I like the wild world where I can have fires, burn whatever, cook and eat on my own pans, not be filling the dumps up with garbage. Where the back drop is real, not artificial or man-made, intended only to please the most superfisical of human sensibiltiies, far from the muck and mud of the real world, the back country, the piles of silage and manure that sustain as all if only indirectly.
along the Adirondack Northway in the dark but I might pop one of those caffeine pills and finish up Bill McKibbean’s latest audio book I got out of the library – Here Comes the Sun. 
I don’t always agree with everything McKibbean says – he’s gone from being a degrowth advocate to an industrial solar advocate – it’s good to hear his perspective. I do agree solar in rural areas is better then building more houses and bringing more people in. Solar panels don’t complain about hog shit, gun fire or garbage burning barrels or try to change your community in local elections. 
Truth is we need more electricity, and how we generate it up to debate. Solar seems really sprawling and high impact, but compared to all the acres people farm, even a full build out of solar is not that enormous. Solar isn’t like residential development, there isn’t toilets to be flushed or electricity to be developed or chemical lawns.
I guess bundle up, the sun will help a lot. Figure it’s best to enjoy the fresh tangy cow-shit air 
before those days come and go, the memories of my college years, and the mountains and great vistas of the North Country. Tomorrow it’s back to work, the buses and city folk. Honestly, I don’t mind talking to the people up here, though it’s shocking how impoverished some of the people just outside the city really are. 
I tend to often romanticize their lives, thinking how much better it is compared to the high consumption suburbanite, still I don’t know. Hogs and venison and rabbits for meat, hog shit for growing veggies and cannabis, a burn barrel and going to scrap yard/dump once a year for unburnable trash, and solar for electricity. Really that’s the life, though only a few up here really are truly lucky to live that life. Got have some plain Greek yougurt with the nuts and other crap food they have that continental breakfast downstairs at 6 AM. All wrapped in plastic and paper. But the coffee is good. Yet before jumping on the day, today looks like a stunningly beautiful day, though maybe a bit cool with the lake breeze. I’ll ride a bit once the sun rises before getting down on other adventures for the day.
and it was great with the water levels being so low in the lake and sand well packed. It was fun, watching the sun rise 
and waves crash along the lake shore. Plan to do that again this morning before things get too busy. When I got back to my truck, there was a tree rat 
violently crashing around in the back of the cap. The only thing I can think of is he climbed in when I was unloading my bike. Didn’t do any damage but I’ll have to clean up all the squirrel crap before I go camping next time. Now that’s some wild ass North Country shit, says the boy who hits the town with a cowboy hat on, 
sniffing the smells of silage and cow poop – and paper plant at least in Plattsburgh. Yes, you spell it with an “h” at the end, you non-locals, lol. 
and maybe Madison County won’t be a thing with heavy rain expected on Sunday and a washout for most of the rest of week. I guess the next option for travel is after Thanksgiving – maybe the East Branch – as I don’t necessarily want to camp in the Southern Zone during Big Game Season. 
I kind of like the solitude of not having cell service and being disconnected from the news cycle 
for a few days. Maybe there will be snow or maybe not. Really hard to say. Or it’s possible the forecast could change. 
Only time will tell. Certainly this time of year camping the evenings are much longer. More time for drinking and smoking pot I guess, and watching shit burn. 
