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. 🌾
I guess that was to be expected, with Hector Backbone up in the clouds between Cayuga and Seneca Lake. Still I was hoping the rain would pull off this morning by the time I got to the Finger Lakes.
For the Love of Bacon didn’t have bacon 🥓 so I figured try out their sausages. I’m sure they’re probably pretty darn good. Did get some really surprisingly cheap New England clams which I cooked up with beer, mini onions and sweet corn.
Got camp set up. 🏕️ Twelve nights here through Labor Day aka September 1st. Seems at one level to be a long time but I also know I’ll be packing up and heading home on Labor Day before you know it. I’ve spent so much time in the Finger Lakes it seems so rediculously familiar like I barely left. I’m glad I’m planning on Michigan next year with my new truck 🚚. Lots of clams and beer today beer, sitting by a small fire 🔥. Sort of glad I brought the heater but actually it’s not that cold out, only wet but I could see mornings being somewhat cold. I had the room in the truck it would have been silly not to bring it. Already getting dark with it being late August, plus it’s a rainy night 🌃 and it’s 8:15.
Been listening to Patrick Hutchinson’s audio book 📙 Cabin during most of the afternoon. Interesting story. And just slowly but surely getting my camping gear packed and organized for what will be my longest camping trip of my life and also nearly two weeks through Labor Day.
Here are some loons swimming on Spectacle Lake. Unfortunately, while I was videoing them on the lake, they didn't make their call. As soon as I turned off the camera, they made their call.
I wasn’t going to go to the Guilderland Town Board Meeting to speak about further comments on the Albany Pine Bush Conservation but I knew I should go and Lynne reached out to me. The kayak was on the roof of my truck, I packed my clothes yesterday and filled the water and propane, so it’s just the dry goods which I did before leaving for the meeting, and the cooler and personal things like contact solution and my toothbrush in the morning. Not going to bother with showering before heading out to camp though I might do a quick shave and will brush my teeth. I want to do a bit of cleaning and double checking my packing list.
I was going to leave before the morning rush hour, but it looks like rain is going to stick around in the Finger Lakes until 1 or 2 PM so no need to rush it and be setting up in the rain. If I leave at 9 AM, I’ll miss the morning rush on the expressway, still have time to get bacon, get small dollar bills for farm stands and ice cream stands, stock up on sweet corn and produce at a stand on the way out there, and maybe clams. I got some needed supplies like lighter fluid for getting a fire started tomorrow with the woods being all wet and not having a lot of burnables to get a fire started. I figure that’s a reasonable time-table.
So yeah. I think truck is running good after driving to work and then out to Guilderland with the kayak on. I’ll tighen the ropes up before leaving and I do need to gas up in Rotterdam when I get bacon before getting on I-88 to head south to NY 206 then west out along NY 79 to Ithaca and ultimately the National Forest. I have that grass I never opened up so that will be good and I have plenty of beer both for clams and drinking. Thursday doesn’t look like a banner day out in the Finger Lakes either but it’s a good one for hanging out at camp, listening to audio books and reading e-books. Friday still seems like it will be a good day to spend in Ithaca paddling and swimming, Saturday then I want to do Pennsylvania and the Pine Creek George Trail as Sunday looks to be stormy.
I don’t know if I’ll have time to do a blog post in the morning but I might do one come the evening once I get camp set up. Depends how I feel but I’ll at least post some quick photos from camp. Now the key is not to forget too many important and irreplaceable things when I leave for camp. I think my list and most of the important stuff already packed.
