Good Morning! Happy Monday. The week comes back around on the calender again. It was a pretty decent weekend weather-wise, and for Saturday evening I got up to Powley Place and spent several hours hanging out on Powley Bridge looking up at the stars. First time this year. Sunday, I went down to the Potholers, and spent about an hour cooling off there in Sunday’s heat. The bugs where kind of oppressive at times, until the sunset, but that’s not surprising camping right down next to the river.

Going to be a hot one the next few days. Oppressively hot. I still refuse to get an air conditioning for my moldy little apartment in the suburbs. But I figure for the hottest portion of the day, I will be at work, and if it’s really hot for sleeping, then too bad. I can always go down to the library. Once the weekend comes, I can head out of town.

It’s going to be a four day week, or maybe a three and half day week for me – if I decide to head out early to head up to Moose River Plains. This time, I actually plan to make it up there without getting rear-ended in the loaner truck on the expressway. I haven’t been up to the plains this year, and it would be nice to get up there for Independence Day Long Weekend.

I don’t think I will bring the kayak, as I don’t really like how it hangs out back of the “little red” truck. Might do shore fishing though.

The expected date for getting Big Red back from the body shop is July 8^th. So far it looks like they haven’t worked much at it yet, as they are probably waiting for parts. In the meantime, I have the “little red loaner truck”, which is a small 4×4 Toyota Tacoma double cab. It’s not a bad a truck, but it’s not my beloved truck with the cap, kayak rack, CB radio, or electric power from the dual battery. It also lacks the beefy General Motors V8 engine, which is such fun on the highway to drive.

Not having the cap or electricity, I had to camp the old fashion way this weekend in a tent and using a lantern. After spending a good portion of the morning cleaning up and tunning the lantern, it worked well. I had to replace the pump and mantle – but that’s to be expected. I had left white gas in there, and hadn’t used it in a long time, so was more then a little worried that it wouldn’t work due to a plugged generator tube. It turned out it was fine after several twists of the tube. After operating the lamp for a while on Saturday night, after carbon deposits burnt out, it was up to full brightness.

I also got some candles to provide additional light, besides the gas lantern. For Independence Day Weekend at Moose Plains, thinking of getting a bunch of inexpensive little candles, and putting them in paper bags and using them as luminaires for background lighting. Maybe paint some of the bags red and blue, to make it look really festive.