You have money, why don’t you go out and buy shit. It’s good to support the local Boy Scouts. You are buying used, it’s keeping crap out of the landfill temporarily. All reasons I told myself to go to the Sportsmart.
Still I didn’t want another thing in my life to break and get used up. It snows so rarely in the city and the snow rarely sticks around. Trails in the mountains are steep and dangerous and I’m not a great skier. Gas is expensive and the roads are usually icy especially in the back country. Honestly, I’m not a fan of the day trip unless it can involve an overnight in the wilderness. I ride my mountain bike to work all year round and that’s exercise. It’s cold in the winter and the days are short. Might as well stay home and read and be warm under the heated blanket. I should buy a snowmobile.
Some day! Never comes. (Goes the song.)
Maybe I’m the ultimate procrastinator. A dreamer not a doer. I turn down many an opportunity by refusing to gas up my truck and buy shit. I could die tomorrowin a freak accident and never get a chance. But money not spent today compounds and offers greater future leverage. Why buy skis today when someday I can own a snow machine and live somewhere in retirement where I can ride every day?
It’s pretty easy to look the other way, when others are engaging in bad or even really bad behavior, if you benefit from other parts of the relationship. Epstein had a lot of money to hand out and he provided a lot of benefits to others that were in his inner circle, and when you are benefiting – it’s hard to ask difficult questions.
We want to all believe we have the moral fortitude to stand up to evil and not be involved in supporting problematic individuals and institutions, but truth is we often focus on the benefits of be associated with such individuals and institutions and are more then willing to gloss over their problematic nature.
This time I was less impressed with the mountains in West Virginia. While certainly bigger than the hills I woke up to this morning camping at Long Pond, they just don’t seem the way they once did in West Virginia.
Maybe it’s because it’s my fifth trip to West Virginia and the scenery isn’t as new and impressive. Visiting Dolly Sods from the much higher base elevation from the West – namely Canaan Valley Wildlife Refuge and Forest Road 80 Freeland Road made the 4,000 summit less impressive. Plus I didn’t get to the real high country – Spruce Knob Mountain area a dozen miles south.
But also looking at Canaan and Backbone Mountain from Olson Firetower made me rethink how impressive the landscape really is. Some of the peaks in that part of West Virginia while maybe high in total elevation are rather flat peaked and modest in elevation gain. I guess if I had been more around the Allegheny Front, North Mountain and Backbone Mountain from Bears Rocks in West Virginia I might have had an alternative take.
I don’t know. But maybe my dreams of the impressive hills and hollows of West Virginia where just that – more myth then reality. The truth is I see a lot of the hilltowns of Albany County or even the hollows of Schoharie County in West Virginia. The people there aren’t much different than the people I grew up knowing. The trailers, junk cars and ramshackle homestead all look familiar. Even much of Dolly Sods and Canaan Mountain remind me of parts of the Taconics and Berkshire Mountains, Canaan Heights, WV has a striking resemblance to Canaan, NY especially if you visit the high point at Harvey Hill State Forest.
My relationship with snow is complicated living in the suburbs.
Snow rarely impacts my commuteliving in the suburbs as the busses run whether it’s sunny and 50 or it’s blowing deep snow. They do a good job if clearing the sidewalks where I live so I can’t complain about that either. I do worry sometimes after severe winter storms about losing power, although my apartment is on enough of a main line that the last time I had an extended power outage was during the ice storm over a decade ago. The big issue here is when I loose power there is no heat in the freezing weather.
An off grid cabin wouldn’t risk losing grid power from the snow. With wood heat electric isn’t required, just throw another log on the fire. I would have to keep an eye on the propane though so I wouldn’t run out of hot water for the shower and dish washing though. Digging out the driveway, cleaning off the solar panels and getting wood from the stack outdoors might be work but I could always come back inside, especially on days when I don’t have to work. A generator might have to be fired up to maintain the voltage of the battery on cold snowy dark days but hopefully with enough storage I wouldn’t have to use it much. Going out to the outhouse might not be fun but I guess I could always build a shitter bucket and dump it out when I’m outside.
While I like the security and warmth of living off grid, I don’t really enjoy driving in the snow. I think I’m fairly good at it, and I’m a careful driver but snow driving is a long slow slog as your speeds are greatly reduced. I expect when I own my own land and have to commute to an out of town area – there will be some long trips home – although I still would use public transportation to get to and from the city center to avoid traffic and parking headaches. I would probably get studded snow tires and maybe chains for my truck. Or have an old clunker that I don’t care if it gets beat up in the snow. I could always leave my truck by the town road and take a four wheeler or snowmobile out there.
I’m fine with snow for now as long as I don’t lose power. I’m saving money with my cheap apartment on the bus line. But it would sure be nice to some day have my own land and have a nice wood stove to stay warm along and have the security of an off grid system without fear of losing electric lighting or heat.
