Good evening! Stopping by the Schoharie Crossing on my way back to Albany. 🚶

Super buggy and humid this evening in Fort Hunter but it’s manageable if I keep moving. 🐜

Partly cloudy and 74 degrees at the Schoharie Crossing. 🌥 There is a south breeze at 8 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 70 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 5 pm.

“You can leave here for four days in space, but when you return it’s the same damn place.”

Was I utterly irresponsible to focus on my summer reading 📖 program and swimming holes 🏊‍♂️ ignoring all other worldly concerns? Probably but too bad. The world will go on just fine without me. 🌎

I’m back from four days in the Adirondacks swimming, 🏊‍♂️ hiking, 🚶 eating sausage paddies topped with onions and sweet corn from Sandell’s 🍔 and sitting next to roaring fire with my cowboy hat singing along with Dick Curless and Dave Dudley, 🎶 wearing my second amendment t-shirt with the AR-15 on it 🔫 and fourteen American flags among others. 🇺🇸 That said, I did not wear an patch over my right eye. Those sweet 🍠 onions were so good but maybe it’s because they were cooked in the hog lard and grease from the sausage paddies. I can only imagine how tasty pork 🥩 from heritage hogs must be.

I very intentionally chose to be off grid as possible in the Adirondacks. 🔕 After all I’m just tired of remote work, 📱 and when I have actual days off I want to be unreachable as possible. It just seems like Albany has become a drag and I just want to be as far away from urban problems as possible. 😴 I still have emails and voicemails ➿ to go through and respond to. I don’t know but the world keeps getting crazier every day. I’m sure I have a

This morning was probably the wettest part of the trip, ☔ mostly due to the overnight rain and fog. 🌫 I took camp down slowly, mainly hoping for the flags and tarp to be at least a little bit more dry then when the morning started out. I’m actually surprised how wet things were this morning – last night was only kind of cloudy when I went to bed.

It rained for a short while midday 🕛 on Saturday and then overnight Sunday into the morning 💦 and while it poured for a while by summer 2021 standards it was a pretty nice long weekend. 🌥 Saturday was cloudy but the weather was sunny but relatively hot on Thursday and Friday. I can only imagine how truly hot things were back in the city. Every day I went to the Potholers although I didn’t swim in them as it was cool Saturday evening although I did spend about an hour and a half chilling in the East Canada Creek near camp after the rain storm. 🏊‍♂️

I did a lot of reading 📖 this past weekend, getting through a 560 page book on Python and finishing up Kimberly Kimball’s book the Dirty Life about farming in the Adirondacks modern day in Essex with horses for their CSA 🐴. Farming is a dirty business with lots of manure and blood but it produces such good food. 🐮 Yes, even when I’m away from computers 🖥 my fascination with Python 🔢 continues. Since summer vacation, I’ve read three books – over 1,000 pages on python. I just see it as such powerful technology that becoming a true master of it will have the ability to improve my life.

I got a book out from the library about rabbit 🐰 farming that I didn’t read but that’s next on my list. Rabbits are a good source of protein and they are fairly efficient converters of feed and are easy to slaughter compared to pigs and cattle. 🐽 Maybe next weekend if I camp or I could read 📙 at home. Been trying to read more at home and stay off social media. It’s tough though.

I bought a truck intertube ⚫ in Johnstown to use in the creek but I left my air pump at home so I couldn’t inflate it. And the creek was running very low by camp. I’ve wanted one for a long time and I saw that Warren Tire in Johnstown was selling them for 21 dollars plus tax. Next time I go camping I’ll bring a rope and paddle so I can use it. Along with the air pump – might need to fix the power cord. I suspect water temperatures won’t drop instantly in September and maybe I can camp somewhere like near Stewart Landing 🏊‍♂️ to try it out. I like the idea of the tube as an alternative to the big heavy kayak 🛶 especially on a hot day when I want to just float in the lake or river.

Today, as soon as I got cell reception I got a low balance warning ⚠ from my bank 🏦. It’s fine everything will clear after my rent check and I’m paid Tuesday 💵 but money has been tight. Always is in the odd years when I don’t have the ability to get bonuses or overtime. It’s just tough as I tend to live paycheck to paycheck, really not keeping a lot in my interest free bank account. As much as I loathe to do it, I may skip my next payment into the so-called high interest savings account although I won’t skip the investment ur retirement accounts. I try to live frugally but gas prices ⛽, rent 🏡, food 🍲 and everything else is just going up in price.

Monday I need to run to the grocery store 🛒, wash my truck 🚚 and probably run to the laundromat all after work. Tuesday is my second to last remote work 💻 day, I have plan to drop my truck off at the local shop to get the oil change and tires rotated. 🔧 It is a bit early for the oil change but I forgot to rotate the tires the last oil change and it shows on the cupping of the tire. Plus as Friday ends remote work, it would mean taking time off from work to have the maintance done as DeNooyer Chevy no longer has late night hours and certainly the local shop doesn’t.

I used to change my own oil all the time but I always struggled to get the filter off and those 35 inch tires are heavy and they don’t have a lift at home. 🛢 The tires are pretty much shot and unevenly worn on the front left – but I want to milk as much out of them as possible. ⚫ At some point I’ll get it Watkins Spring for a proper computerized alignment and probably before winter put on a new set of 35 inch Nitto Terra Gablers. They’ve been good tough tires, although maybe not the absolute best mud or snow traction. Fairly quiet until recently as they got real worn.

I also want to sand down and paint over the rust spots on the wheel well and door sills 🖌️ before the salt is back on the roads come winter. I have less than 100,000 miles on the truck although after 10 rough New York Winters things are getting quite rusty on the undercarriage. I want to try to sqweak out a few more years out of the truck before I throw it away. I like having the cap and it’s not my daily driver – I take the bus. 🚍 At one level, I’d like to get of having a vehicle as a budget buster but I still like traveling – and it saves money by allowing me to shop at big box stores and take my bottles and cans to the recycling ♻ center rather than paying for trash service.