Good evening! It is a pleasant fall evening for sitting out back with a touch of humidity. 🍂

I decided with the early sunsets that I think I’ll wait until tomorrow night to pack for the Adirondacks and then head up early Saturday morning. I didn’t take off Monday or Tuesday for next week but I don’t anticipate it being a problem.

Mostly cloudy and 69 degrees in Delmar, NY. ☁ There is a southeast breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 64 degrees. The skies will clear tomorrow around 1 pm.

It’s a pretty nice early I sat out back for a couple of hours 🌃 although it was obnoxious when the elderly 🧓 neighbor put the bright scare lights before heading out to town while I’m just sitting out back enjoying the night. I was so cranky 🦀 about the truck this morning, I missed my walk 🚶 so I only got in about 8,000 steps for the day. I thought I was doing over 10,000 a day but I’m finding I’m falling short as lately I’ve not been doing my morning and evening walks as regularly as I should. 🚶

I thought about it some more and I might take off either the last week of October or more likely the second week of November – Veterans Day Weekend 🍂 to do a trip either to Western New York and Pennsylvania or maybe West Virginia. If I do more low elevation stuff and head down to the New River Gorge it might still have decent color. 🌉 I really would like to get down to the gorge. Regardless, there won’t be the crowds and it might be fun to go a different week when it’s quieter. More hunters but I might get to meet some real backwoods outdoorsman during the season especially somewhere like Camp Run or Gandy Run. The question just becomes when does the snow and ice 🌨 come for the winter? The climate high country West Virginia is similar to the Adirondacks and Catskills.

But first this weekend ⛺ it’s off to the Adirondacks for one last hurrah of summer or so I can pretend. I want to use the tube 🔘 and kayak 🛶 at least one more time before it’s too cold. 💦 Saturday should be fairly warm but then seasonable autumn like weather for Sunday onward. Indian summer seems canceled. It always does get cool this time of year although I like the long nights at camp especially when I do a lot of cooking. But summer came and went in the blink of an eye 👁‍🗨.

I really do need to put a finger 🖕 on on my anxiety, and I just stop avoiding so many things in my life. 🛻 It was stupid that I dragged my feet so long on my truck 🛻 of course who would think it would be a month until I could get my truck aligned at the one local shop with the big lift – I thought if anything the delay would be ordering the tires. ⭕ I just hate spending money 💵 on something I’m going to throw tin in a few years, although ultimately I’m not spending money on the truck but the experiences it brings me. I thought I could get away with feet dragging 🤔 and waiting until more money came in. 👣

Maybe though my therapist was right, 👉 I’m concerned about the stupid things not the things that could cause real harm or risk. So you want to live out in the country in an off grid cabin, burn your own trash, heat with wood, have pigs and cattle guns and four wheelers – that doesn’t make you mentally ill – just your a redneck wanna be. 🙄The things that are harmful are your anxiety and the experiences your missing by holding back. ⚠ Caution isn’t a bad thing but it can become harmful. That’s the real harm – not the dreams of making some black 🖤 smoke out in sticks. 🚜 At some point I’ll take up some more counseling but I got to make time for it and hopefully with some guy who is less creepy and reminds me I’m not as bad off as the rapists and heroin addicts he normally deals with.

I been continuing to work on improvements to the mapping back end 🗺 on the blog, although ultimately I know it needs a complete rewrite to make it more efficient and easier to maintain as I keep hacking additional features into it to make new maps.