Personal

Despite driving all the way down to Elmira and wanting to explore more of Big Flats and Elmira downtown to take in the full Mark Twain, those plans were cut short when the skies opened up around 4 PM last night and kept raining into the evening, though it cleared up by the time I got back to camp, only to rain throughout the night into the morning.

After a rather dark and rainy morning, ☀️ the sun is peaking back out. The Elmira trip wasn’t a disaster or all that bad, but it was a lot of driving and was cut short by the rain. The Steede Hill Preserve was kind of a disappointment – I think I missed the trail to the overlook but the Tanglewood Nature Center was remarkably nice to explore, even if it was at one level just another “woke” suburbanite children nature center, the live Pythons and timber rattlers in cages was pretty darn neat. As was the fisher and raptors they had in the outside bird barns. 🐍 The views of the Chemung River Valley south of Big Flats from the Mark Twain Trail was pretty good, and the ice cream 🍦 options at the Alpine Ice Cream stand was impressive though I think I ended up ordering the most lame thing on the menu for $8. But vacation, I wanted a peanut butter 🥜 and Reese Peanut Buttercup sundae.

Elmira in the evening was a hot mess.💥 Even by the standards of a town mostly known these days for it’s Psychiatric Center, the college, the Mark Twain exhibits. Crazy, right up my league! My GPS took me through a tour of much of the city in search of a gas station ⛽ and then it was tight getting in and out of the parking lot, and my suspension on my truck let me know with a few nerve-wracking cracks and pops. Nothing new but never great to hear on vacation. I so wanted to ride around downtown Elmira and visit some of the Mark Twain Historic sites like his study, but I wasn’t going to do it in the pouring rain. 🌧️ Then of course I thought there would be free parking down at the Elmira – Lowman Rail Trail 🚲 but first in what I thought was a free parking lot, I saw a big “Private Parking – Tow Away” 🛑 Sign then the other lot I noticed – it was advertised as a Park and Ride Lot, I get there and there is a big sign that said $5 Daily Parking. I am sure I could have found free on street parking somewhere else, but it was pouring rain.

So yeah, I gave up waiting for the rain to stop, which seemed to just keep popping up on the radar as soon as I could have hoped for the clouds to pass overhead. 🌥️ It was obnoxious. I decided I would drive down to the other end of the rail trail at Lowman but I tell you I-86 between Elmira and Lowman was so rough on my crap truck suspension. The truck was going “Whoop! Whoop! Whoop!” and jarring along the rough concrete panels of the road. I thought something had broke in my truck almost 🛠️ but it turned out once I got off the rough as fuck road, it was good. 🛻 I stopped at Lowman but it was still drizzling hard, and while the parking lot was free there, I wasn’t going to ride on the lower part of the Rail Trail which goes right along I-86 and was certainly noisy.

So I dipped down in Pennsylvania 🛢️ to spot some garbage burning barrels, which certainly is not hard in BFE Penna. It’s true more and more farms and homesteads now have dumpsters or even trash pickup but many still burn too at least paper and cardboard.  📦 I get it, it stinks and is toxic with all that plastics that is part of garbage. Drove back up through Waverly then up through Van Etten. Only a few burn barrels being back in New York State but I still had a smile 😀 on my face, that being that I had been in Pennsylvania for a few minutes. It’s just interesting how the little towns in Pennsylvania have a very different feel then New York, the businesses and signs are different. Even the dairies and homesteads in Pennsylvania have a different feel then in New York. 🔥 The Cliffs around Cliff Side State Forest in Van Etten are impressive, as is that valley, and the giant wood mill that is out that way. 🪓You forget how truly much timber is produced by the forests around here. I had my ice cream in Alpine, ultimately regretting my choice of many good ones on the menu. I got back, had a nice little fire, smoked some weed, drank too much beer and no water, 🍻 and woke up this morning with a terrible hang over. 🤮 I didn’t drink any water yesterday, bad idea, I knew as soon as I started feeling leg-cramps mid-day, 🦵 but somehow I got busy and ignored the obvious decision.

This morning I slept in quite late – almost until 8 AM ⏰ as it’s dark in the woods this time of year, and the morning was awful cold, cloudy and wet. ⛅ Certainly not a banner morning into he woods. Made eggs 🥚 up and then headed over to the Backbone Trail trailhead where I knew I would have good cell service and canceled my September 2nd appointment 📞 with the Capital Truck Works to get the shock bushing fixed on my truck. So many things are shit on my truck, and if it makes it home from vacation, I plan to hobble it along hopefully through the fall and winter before trading it in for my next rig. As the day progressed, there was times of sun, ☀️ times of advertising on radio about ‘Hope Over Addiction’ apparently because I like a little grass and beer after a long day up in the woods. Read 📖 for a while, renewed my fishing license, 🎣 this afternoon I’ll toss my line in either Potomac or Foster Pond. Need to find another audio book to listen to next.