All those hours bike riding – 53 miles and the Turkey Path – left me feeling sore and quite dehydrated by morning. And it’s one of those days where it’s blue skies in Watkins Glen and cloudy and gray in Ithaca with a lot of wildfire smoke around.

I felt pretty awful when I awoke this morning 🤮 but after drinking a lot of water and some coffee then having carrot 🥕 pancakes 🥞 with strawberries, some kefir and Greek yogurt I’m starting feeling at least halfway decent. I’m sure in an hour I’ll be good, I’ll head down to Ithaca, swim in a gorge and ride around the city, 🏊 maybe if I’m ambitious, ride up the hill and poke around the botanical gardens. I mostly like hanging out in the section with the Giant Laurel and Mountain Laurel, it reminds me of Penna and West Virginia. The prior I was in yesterday, some two hours a way but it was nice. 🌲

It was probably was that skunky weed 🪴 – that nasty Critical Thinking strain that has done nothing but make me paranoid 🤪 and woke me up during the night panicking that my summer vacation is essentially over because the Pennsylvania day trip is over and it’s the banner trip of vacation – the balance of the week will be remaining in the Finger Lakes with Penn Yan likely the last long trip. 🏞 That doesn’t mean there isn’t a lot to do and explore from Montour Falls to Ithaca to Trumansburg and Watkins Glen. Or that I won’t miss a more relaxed pace for the second half of week. 😴 Indeed this morning is more relaxed already, in the sense I’m taking it slow. Maybe it was the salmon for dinner I had last night that probably was going spoiled (I need ice 🧊) or my sheer exhaustion but it’s fun to blame the drugs. And listen to Grateful Dead records. 💿

It was fun in Pennsylvania but such a long trip back especially taking Penna 328 up through Elmira. 🛻I could have taken the expressway back but it’s vacation plus you know me and the back roads, scoping out those burn barrels. 🛢️ It’s such a different culture down there. Kind of dirty and industrial with the fracking, industry and agriculture but also a really strong conservation sense and a closeness to the land 🚜 that you’ll never find in New York. I guess back roads Pennsylvania ain’t that much different than New York but it seems like there are just a lot more gun stores, churches, rundown farms and homesteads, fewer solar panels and a lot more burn barrels and bonfire pits full of trash to burn.

I think I’ll read 📖 for a bit more this morning, head out and get ice 🧊 and then head down to Ithaca, ride over to Buttermilk Falls State Park, swim and wash off the sweat 😰. I’m not going to load the kayak 🛶 though even if Cayuga Lake might be nice, I’m just too tired. Maybe home fries and onions for lunch then head out around 1 pm. Get clams at Wegmans and sweet corn on the way back to camp 🏕. Boil the clams 🦪 and corn 🌽 initially on the stove in beer 🍻 then build a fire and finish cooking on the fire for a nice smokey smell. Maybe not smoke any more of that critical thinking grass. Maybe that should be tossed in the fire 🔥 and burnt staying up wind like some kind of noxious plastic that rednecks love to burn in Pennsylvania.