The sun and the blue skies are a mood booster when you wake up smelling beer and clams, sweat and cow manure and mud that is splattered all over. But the sun will try out everything. Not sure if I will get out for a paddle on Seneca Lake though based on the forecast this might be the nicest day with the least amount of wind and choppiness on the lake.
I will have to get cleaned up after the zucchuni pancakes 🥞 and coffee. ☕ I totally abused the caffeine yesterday but it was so cold and gray most of the day I broke out caffeine pills 💊 with the cannabis for a europhoric experience. But it messed up my sleep last night along with getting a flat tire and dropping my cellphone 📲 in that cow 🐄 pasture full of curious Holsteins. And it all fueled my anxiety, which didn’t help as I heard more chunks of sheet metal fall of my truck in a pile of rust as I slammed the door last night as mud and dampness clinged onto the truck all night. Rot is starting to creep into the frame which is more alarming in my mind but I hope to make it through summer vacation and preferably the winter with Red. 🛻 I can probably survive winter without a truck, I don’t have to do winter camping 🏕️.
And of course you know the first thing that popped up social media this morning was the post about the wonders of driving 🚘 a 20 year old Honda Civic around. Just think about the benefits of buying a $10,000 junker rather than financing a $80,000 car at 5 percent interest and investing the difference in the stock market index fund at 8 percent annual return. As if a car was just something you drove to the grocery store and to your suburban office building 🏢 and you’re time at the mechanics shop was free and unlimited. In some ways I wish I could have gone to Michigan this year but it wasn’t going to happen with Big Red 🛻. It might have made it or it might not. I don’t know it’s a coffee and caffeine ☕ induced haze and anxiety. Fortunately I’ve turned off Zillow and I should stay off Facebook but I’m sure somehow the real estate board which find a way to ruin my vacation by reminding me how foolish it is to rent. 🏘️ Renting means you’re paying your landlords mortgage and a ten percent profits! Just think of all that equity in that plastic house with trash pickup and a high speed internet and enormous TV in every room! You need a 96 gallon garbage can and a fake recycling bin, not hogs and a burn barrel. 🛢️ Don’t you want one of those plastic suburban houses you can drive your 20 year old Honda Civic sitting in bumper to bumper traffic to your suburban office building while choking down a McDonald’s grease pit breakfast? 🍔 See what you need is BETTER HELP,🤪 fortunately the podcast I was listening to last night as I couldn’t sleep 💤 didn’t have that advertisement every five minutes.
As the morning progresses it becomes more pleasant and my fears 😱 drift away. I’ll get camp squared away and locked up in a bit and I guess the kayak 🛶 back on the roof of my truck and head down to the Watkins Glen Seneca Lake Canoe Launch. Depending on how choppy it is I’ll paddle up to Hector Falls or maybe just around the lake. The Watkins Glen pool opens at noon 🏊 to 5:45 pm after which I will get my Glen Dairy Bar 🍧 fix for the day. I need milk, maple syrup and cider vinegar. Then watch the sun set over Seneca Lake. 🚲 I’ll bring my bike and tube ⭕ but I doubt I’ll ride or float today in Seneca Lake. The tire still needs to be topped off my bike but I’ll do that later. I’m not sure if I’m feeling like going to Pennsylvania to ride tomorrow though it might be a good day for that. Maybe it’s my auto anxiety. 🧠
My remaining Hoopla borrows from July returned automatically yesterday. 📚 I still have my 10 August borrows to use up before the end of the month. I figure get one book out at a time and read it 📖 until it gets closer to the end of the month and end of vacation. Somehow I’m so strategic with my Hoopla borrows knowing the hard monthly limit when I get so many out from Libby and don’t care. Hoopla has a much better selection and the books work so much better when I’m places without cell service. 📱 Truth is that after vacation I probably won’t be camping for a few more weeks and even then it will just be Rennselaerville State Forest where I have cell service. And how much can I read in a month? 🌲🌳🌲
Well I’m making progress at cleaning up and securing camp. 🔐 Shaved and got out my bathing suit though I need a change of clothes after swimming 🏊. Perfect day for heading out at Seneca Lake – even on the Backbone there is only the slightest breeze and that’s unusual. All next week is going to be much breezer but sunny and cool. And that means I also have all of next week to enjoy hanging out at camp. Every day of vacation doesn’t have to be go go go. It can be relaxed. But today is a good day to paddle so I should get on it.
Anything that Trump does not agree with must be a conspiracy to lie with statistics, says Trump. But I’m incredulous about such claims.
Police officers have very little reason to say crime is lower than it really is. Usually when crime is high, politicians allocate more not less resources to police departments. Rarely are police departments blamed for high crime – usually that blame is ascribed to politicians – and the solutions called for to reduce crime usually make police officers jobs easier.
It’s not to say it’s easy to compare one city’s crime level to another accurately. Each community has different laws, policies and moral standards that define crime. Even if you only look at crime universally agreed as bad like pre-mediated murder, you have issues like abortion. Different communities have different levels of marginalization of minorities and different levels of desperation by citizens who lack jobs and mental health care. Indeed, I suspect much of the south’s high murder rates is not due to guns but racial strife.
Ideally the federal government would require consistent reporting of crime beyond what is currently reported but there are tens of thousands of different law enforcement agencies in America. But better tracking of crime would be good not just for interested citizens and sociologists but also policymakers. Still every community is different and it’s hard to argue that a top down approach would be effective at reducing crime when it’s certain to require a much more diverse and local community level solutions to crime.
As I was heading back after sunset got a flat tire on my bike. Knew as soon as I heard the air roaring out. But I was prepared, I had a hand pump and a spare tube. Didn’t want to have to change tubes though as it was getting dark. Plus the tires were completely covered in cow manure as I was having fun riding through the cow patties, splashing them like mud puddles. I’m a stoned dirty hick. Fortunately I run my tires with fix a flat so after pumping the tire up a second time I was able to ride the five miles back to camp with no issues although I’ll want to pump it up good and hard come morning. Fix a flat can make the ride quality a bit poor at times on asphalt but it usually repairs most leaks either instantly or after a re-inflation or two.
So yeah, I’m along the No-Nan-Tanko trail and my phone bounces off my bike. I go looking for my phone and I have 20 or so best new 1,500 lb hoved Holstein friends helping me look for my phone. Fortunately I find it not smashed though with only a little bit of cow poop on it.
Now I’m just hoping the skies will clear out for sunset. Starting to clear out a half hour before sunset It’s going to right at the edge. Then I’ll ride back to camp and have a nice fire and cook up the remaining clams.
Most of the morning was drenched in heavy fog and dampness while yesterday rain into the night. Mostly just a drizzle but hardly nice weather.
It’s been a good day for cooking, 🧑🍳 reading, smoking pot and drinking. Giggling 🤭 enjoying fresh farm produce and more clams. 🦪Just kind of a cool gray day. I would have spent time fishing 🎣 but I realized my pole was broken. Out riding this evening, went up to Foster Pond and now at Ballard Pond. Hoping for a good sunset but that seems unlikely at this point. 🚲 Going to ride up along the No-Nan-Tanko trail and go to Teeter Pond and hope to see the sunset from whatever the pasture is up that way. 🌇
Whatever, the weather is going to be a lot nicer tomorrow and Saturday, ☀️ rain on Sunday but maybe that’s another day for hanging out at camp 🏕️ as the rest of the week seems pretty good. It’s a long vacation so I can certainly afford some down time. Had a few little work projects to do – I hoped to wrap them up before leaving town but whatever. I muted Zillow for the week, I’m tired of seeing ghetto houses and plastic suburbanite crap on my phone. 📱
I guess vacation is about relaxing 😴 and I did spend a good portion of the day in the hammock. And some time at the side of Johnson Pasture watching the cows 🐄 graze. Listening to them rip the grass. My boots are still damp, my jeans muddy and my hands covered with grease 👐 when the chain 🔗 slipped off my bike. Front derailleur is still fucked up on my bike, 🚲 I’ve lately been using a rock to keep it in position. I can’t figure out how to get it properly adjust, I’ll mess with it more this winter. I don’t know if I’m going to ride to work all winter this year but it sucks taking the local bus and transferring to the shuttle especially with the time between the transfer. 🚌 Tomorrow is the last day ever for the express bus. Maybe someday it will return. I know I should walk laps in the Plaza 👣 and get yelled at by the homeless people and then take the bus home and retire to the warmth of the electric blanket.
Truth is that it’s very deja moo, 🐮 I feel like this trip is so bland and boring but I guess it’s better than staying home 🏡. Everybody expected me to take a summer vacation and it’s good to be away. I’ve been so busy in the office 🏢 constantly developing new products and services. Yet I wasn’t ready to take my increasingly creaky old truck out to Michigan this year but I know the window to take such trips is closing in as soon I’ll end up settling down and have a house and goats to feed. 🐐 But for now I’m in the Finger Lakes National Forest listening to the cows chew their cud, slinging cow shit with my mountain bike hoping for a good sunset or two as I smoke more grass. 🌾
