Not a half bad walk down to the express bus downtown but it is still a bit chilly at 28 degrees. More cloudy then earlier and it will be mostly cloudy as we head up to 46 degrees later. Rain showers but they should hold off until after the evening commute. A bit of a traffic jam heading into the Empire State Plaza today due to the state bar exam.

The sun will set at 5:36 pm with dusk around 6:04 pm, which is 1 minute and 16 seconds later than yesterday. Today will have 10 hours and 54 minutes of daylight, an increase of 2 minutes and 47 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of rain, mainly between 8pm and 4am. Mostly cloudy, with a low of 35 degrees at 5am. 16 degrees above normal. South wind 6 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2016, it got down to 21 degrees with periods of snow. The record low of -8 occurred back in 1963.

The snow is mostly gone from the Albany County Rail Trail, so I guess it’s unlikely I will be able to ski down through the gorge. The rain this week will likely melt away most of the remaining snow. Maybe we will get more snow before the end of winter but with the long range forecast, I’m not hopeful. I’m actually hoping it will melt away soon, so I can head out to Burnt-Rossman State Forest or somewhere else and do early spring camping like I did last year.

This past long weekend was nice, getting out skiing each day during the weekend. Schodack Island State Park on Saturday, Rensselaerville State Forest on Sunday, and Kaaterskill Rail Trail/North-South Lake Campground on Sunday. Not a half bad weekend for sure. Skiing was a bit sloppy at Rensselaerville and icy at Kaaterskill Falls but it still was a pretty good weekend — and great to get out after not getting out for a bit. I thought about camping but with all that melting snow, and just the work of packing and unpacking camping gear, I decided against it. I think at this point, I’m just going to wait for the snow to melt for the last time this year.

Washed my truck on Monday morning and got it dirty again by Monday afternoon. It really is tough this time of year to keep things clean with all of the salt and mud. But it’s not as bad as it was before I washed it. I had so much red clay sprayed on it from Rensselaerville State Forest you couldn’t see out the windows. I did notice that there is some paint peeling in both wheel wells, probably from stone damage. I don’t think it was from the body work, because it’s a problem on both wheel wells, showing some spots of exposed, galvanized sheet metal where paint flaked. Maybe it’s from the salt or the past six winters its been through or maybe just the aggressive pressure washing I do every winter, but I’d prefer to hold off the visible rust for a few more years if at all possible. Granted I wouldn’t have noticed it if I hadn’t been deep in the wheel well spraying them with the pressure washer to get them cleaned.

Finally bought a new wallet. It’s nice, with the center tri-fold, I could put my CDTA Navigator card and just tap the card without removing it from my wallet. I also stuck my hunting and fishing licenses so they can be just swung open, and organized my cards carefully. Now it seems like I have less problem with the door key card in my wallet being read, and all of the cards I regularly need are easy to find. Took some of the cards I rarely use and are non-essential like my blood donor card and TOPS/Wegmans cards. Put them in my truck because chances are the next time I’ll need them I will be out camping in Western NY and can just pull them out then.  And it was only $12. I hate to throw away anything I could more use out of my old wallet has been falling apart for many years and really was more marginally usable then usable.

There is one month until Spring when the sun will be setting at 7:09 pm with dusk at 7:37 pm (Daylight Savings Time). The average high temperature is 46 degrees, with a record high of 78 in 1921. I can’t wait until springtime, especially once it gets nice enough to go down to the park with a book and/or my laptop, and sit out enjoying the fresh air while reading or working on something on the internet.