Personal

Hot back in town 🥵

|

If I didn’t have seven interviews scheduled for tomorrow and wasn’t a bit short on vacation time, and it didn’t look so stormy for the coming weekend, maybe I would have found a way to extend my weekend out in Schoharie for a few more days. It was nice, particularly at that Betty Brook site.

Turns out that I didn’t run out of propane this morning, 🔥 but instead I forgot to turn the tank back on this morning, and if I had done that I would have had enough fuel to make it through the morning. I guess it took a while to burn the fuel out of the lines in the hot weather, and I should have known that but I wasn’t thinking clearly. Must have been the pot I smoked last night. Always blame it on the drugs, and not my stupidity. At any rate, campfire breakfast was good. 🍳

It was nice at the car show 🚘 but a hot day for sure, with the sun beating down and humidity. Turns out the Fultonham Country Store next to Shauls — the ice cream stand — doesn’t open until 2 PM.  🍦I know that’s kind of lame, but so be it. Spend a lot of time soaking my feet down in the Schoharie Creek by Mine Kill before going to Shauls to get a few more produce things, 🌽 🍆 then the auto show and the pool. 🏊‍♀️

Doing my wash currently at my parents house 👕 I may see if I can if I can stay overnight to beat the heat and because it will probably be dark 🌆 before things are done. It won’t be bad sleeping in the truck camper with the fan running, then I can listen to podcasts or stream other content, kind of like I can do at home.

Going to be a hot week. 😅 But then again, that’s to be expected this time of year. Ten the heat breaks come mid-week. I’m just hoping things will get hot again for summer vacaton.

How fast things change 🚬

|

I was watching somebody smoke cannabis up at Mine Kill State Park the other day. Pungent but so is tobacco. Once a criminal offense to openly display or publicly smoke cannabis – long after mere possession had been decriminalized – nowadays it’s regulated the same as ordinary tobacco – banned inside most office buildings and restaurants but allowed outdoors most places except at schools, hospitals and near the entrance of office buildings. Plus no smoking inside of motor vehicles for obvious reasons.

The thing is it really shows how arbitrary the old law really was. It does make you sleepy, time go by quickly with your eyes wide open, relaxed and somewhat giddy and forgetful. It takes the edge off of life. But hardly as powerful as alcohol. We were putting people in jail for something you can now go to a dispensary and hand over $10 for a week of relaxed evenings in the woods. Or grow in your front yard if you so please. Something that is essentially a more pungent tobacco.

In some ways it reminds me of gay marriage. Once taboo – you know homosexuality – now somewhat common and ordinary and certainly not centered on sexual deviance or colorful dress. Something a decade later accepted as normal, just how everybody does it. Government can be so cruel.

Ducks

|
Taken on Saturday July 28, 2018 at Notes.

Nineteen Years at Betty Brook

|

I discovered the Betty Brook Campsite back in 2005 when I drove out to Oneonta to explore the college as one as an option to attend. Got off Interstate 88 and took the back roads to here – I learned about this campsite exploring the interactive DEC mapper – shortly after getting my truck and camper shell. This kind of became the place to go when I got into hiking in the Catskills in 2007 and 2008. Sort of on the way back from the Catskills plus roadside camping is virtually non existent in those relatively small and close to New York City.

I camped here – actually lower Betty Brook Road on the unofficial site now posted close – in the gully north of West Kill during the summer of 2008 when Barack Obama gave his famous speech to the DNC. I was at Betty Brook Campsite during that frigid Columbus Day Weekend in 2009 the weekend before the burn ban went into effect for the first time. I remember listening to Indian Summer and somebody calling in saying they would miss out on having bonfires with the new regulations. I remember scoping out burn barrels along the roads, watching people burn debris one last time.

That was the first of many more nights up here. There was many days spent at Mine Kill Pool and Mount Utsaytha. Days hiking and biking the Catskill Scenic Trail, Vromans Nose and Middleburg Cliff. Trips down to Cobelskill to get supplies and internet. That weird day in 2015 after it had hit nearly 86 degrees on March 9th camping up here. Big fire then, had a lot of winter accumulated trash to burn on up. Big fire, lol! Days mountain biking and a very colorful hike up a Columbus Day back in 2019.

There is something serene about the Betty Brook. The somewhat rough road and deep in the hollow makes you feel so removed from the rest of the world even if you’re not all that far removed. Apparently this campsite – from my Facebook friends – really has quite a cult following from all I can tell. But what’s so wonderful is it feels like the wilderness without being all the ways in the Adirondacks.

Shooting at the Florida Man isn’t nice 🔫

|

It gives the gun controllers a case for banning guns. Not to mention it could give the elderly Florida Man who loves his fast food a heart attack and that would deprive the courts the ability to seek justice after this three ring circus known as the Presidential Election is

Ferris Lake

|

Bushwhacked from the East Canada Creek. Turns out you can take the road back to the edge of the camp and there is a herd path back to Ferris Lake but I didn't find it when I checked in 2011 and didn't learn about it until after my bushwhack!