Personal

After the rain with the howling wind, I found it hard to be motivated

|

Sometimes I just treat Saturday that way, I waste it just because I need some time to unwind. It’s been so busy lately with work and several little screw ups on my nerves along with my abuse of caffeine.

Truth is that after the rain I got a few work projects that came in 📄 that required some code and processing. And then I got watching yet another video on buying homesteading land and then some of the programming and technical roots of the old Macintosh Plus System software. Not that I ever would buy a Mac today – I’m a big open source guy – I’m interested in how old technology did so much in so little space. Lots of clever tricks! 🖌️

Definitely looking and feeling a lot like November at Five Rivers. 🍁 Colors of autumn are rapidly fading. I was here yesterday but I was working most of the afternoon on the wifi and didn’t feel great, in a fuzz from the sleeping pills 💊 and the caffeine ☕ and the stress of work. But it’s really hitting me today, especially with that wind. 🍃 Would have been mad cold up at Rennselaerville State Forest this weekend. Listening to Box of Rain and thinking about Phil Leash’s death ☠️ – I only got to listening to the Grateful Dead this summer with smoking all that pot. I know that’s why I make so many stupid mistakes at work – it’s my insistence on frying my brain 🧠 with caffeine and cannabis. But it makes the music 🎶 so rich and the world so colorful. 🌈

I’m pretty sure my next trip will be on Veterans Day Weekend ☔ as next weekend looks like it might be a necessary wet but mild. I’m thinking about taking four or five days – with zero remote work after the election – to ride trail or road and just enjoy solitude in November. 🌃 Those dark cool nights by the fire 🔥. Still want to visit Cazenovia but maybe that waits until December as I also would love to camp somewhere along Somerset Airfield Road and ride around that area, in more remote country. That’s why I want to do an oil change tomorrow so I’m good and just do the tire rotation with the inspection at the beginning of December. 🌨️ Of course who knows when the snow will set in for the winter.

Two months until Christmas 🎄

|

You know it seems odd that the holiday season is so rapidly approaching as is the cold and dark of winter. I’m struggling to accept that fact, it seems like only yesterday I was camping at the State Horse Camp on Christmas, riding trail, roasting those chestnuts and cranberries on the fire.

Not a Real Fan of Thacher Park

|

For many years I would never go to John Boyd Thacher State Park. I never really liked the place — I thought it was too developed — too surbanized — too packed the gills with obnoxious people. Not a place to go for relaxation or scenic views but to be run over by joggers and bicyclists while taking in the view or doing nature study.

My hatred of John Boyd Thacher Park wore off over the years. First in 2003, I started go occasionally to the back part of the park off of Beaver Dam Road after my college class let out for the day — usually once a week. It was nice going back there, especially around the ski hill in  the evening, as you would never see to many people back there. Mostly undeveloped, wandering around the cleared paths in the brushy woods that were full of wildlife.

Then I “rediscovered” the OSI parcel, which is some “wild” lands to the north of the park. Especially on weekdays, and to certain extend on the weekends this area is quite nice, quite and wild. Most of the surburbanites in their SUVs avoid this area for the developed parcels with the picinic tables and rails to discouage them from heading to close to  the edge. But the OSI parcel is a totally different experience.

While I like the OSI parcel with its views, if I have other choices I’ll go to other wild lands with even fewer restrictions. I don’t like how Thacher Park closes at dusk, you can’t go for moonlit walks or camp there like on state forests. There just seems to be so many restrictions compared to other wild lands around to explore.

Escarpment