Personal

Was it worth it? 🏖

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One more full day away from it all out in the Finger Lakes. Many a happy day floating, paddling, riding trail. Many an good ice cream eaten, many a puff taken, many a clam eaten and a beer drunk. But soon to be a memory, that is what I remember of it, and those extra calories on the waist. It’s been an adventure.

I’m 41 and I have nagging feeling that these adventures must come to end at some point. Adults have vacations but hardly the free flowing, whatever goes in the wilderness. I know I need to find a permanent home that needs ongoing repairs and livestock to feed. But it’s still a lot of fun to pretend I’m young, even if I ain’t anymore.

Reality bites with that occasionally work email and problem to fix from my phone. But I’ve really avoided work as much as possible, never made it to the library to create that IOICODE or run that report. I did the basics, like speak to the new hire and let them know I’ll be in late on Monday due to my physical – but I put off much onto the new week.

Camping at the Finger Lakes National Forest on August 2nd, 2024

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Today I'm heading to Ithaca for the Sapsucker Woods and the Cornell Botanical Gardens. Bringing my kayak though I'm expecting rain and storms by afternoon. Yesterday I went up to Penn Yan via the Keuka Outlet Trail and also Geneva, floated on Seneca Lake for a while and explored Geneva on my mountain bike.

Maybe I can beat the rain to see the Cornell Botanical Gardens 🌸

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Actually I think first I want to explore Sapsucker Woods and maybe then ride my bike over to the Botanical Gardens if time allows. Not going to bother loading the kayak as I doubt there will be time to ride much before the rain comes in.

Yesterday was a fun day. 🚲 Got clams at Tops, corn, summer squash, tomatoes 🍅 at a farm stand, drove up to Dresden then rode the Keuka Outlet trail to Kueka Lake. 🏞 Touched my bike wheel in both Keuka and Seneca Lakes. Got candy at the Keuka Candy Store 🍬 and ice cream at the Spotted Duck Creamery. 🍨 Went up to Geneva and rode around the city, floated on Seneca Lake at the State Park, drove back to camp and boiled clams and sweet corn in beer. 🍻 Fell asleep.

The long haul garbage trucks through Watkins Glen as I eat my ice cream in a plastic dish 🚛👈 🍧

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It’s something to chew over, watching those massive trucks haul north from the Southern Tier expressway through Wine Country and the Finger Lakes to the massive dumping grounds next to the Montezuma Bird Refuge.

Junked televisions and kitchen appliances, plastic milk jugs, junk mail, rotten fruit and meat scraps, smashed and commingled all together as a mass known as garbage. Something people paid to get of in the massive mounds that border historic Seneca Falls, in hundreds of acres former wetlands, strip mined, and stacked with mounds of garbage high in the air.

I tossed that plastic cup, the napkin and spoon into the bucket I have for camp garbage. Like the outlaw smoking grass on federal lands, I’ll burn it up the next time I have a fire. Those smoldering burn barrels down in Pennsylvania had a rather putrid smell, but I’ll burn it hot, turn it into mostly carbon dioxide and water vapor, soon to be absorbed back in the land.

But even I concede that’s not a sustainable or urban solution – we already have too much carbon dioxide in the air and incinerators burn all municipal waste with all kinds of chemicals, a bit in a controlled fashion but 24-7 usually in a dense urban area. And even I concede with my fires I can’t burn everything – some things are really noxious to burn and other things don’t burn or burn very poorly.