Good evening! Partly cloudy and 69 degrees in Delmar. ⛅ There is a west breeze at 7 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 67 degrees. The muggy weather ends tomorrow around 1 am. 😓 Somewhat less oppressive now but not great. Tomorrow should be much nicer. Skipped my evening walk as it got late early and I have a bit of a stomach bug.

Tonight will be partly cloudy ☁, with a low of 62 degrees at 4am. Two degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 67 at 9pm. Northwest wind 5 to 7 mph. In 2017, we had thunderstorm rain and mist in the evening, which became patches of fog and mist by the early hours of the morning. It was humid. It got down to 64 degrees. The record low of 46 occurred back in 1939.

Tonight will have a Waxing Crescent Moon 🌒 with 33% illuminated with the moon setting at 11:43 pm. The First Quarter Moon will be tomorrow with mostly clear skies. The Buck Moon 🌝 is on Thursday, July 26th. The sun will rise at 5:33 am with the first light at 5:00 am, which is 53 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 9 hours and 4 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 36 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will be sunny 🌞 , with a high of 82 degrees at 3pm. One degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 58 at 6am. Northwest wind 7 to 11 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies with more clouds in the afternoon. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 86 degrees. The record high of 100 was set in 1953.

I went over to John Wolcott’s house tonight to record more video of him telling the story about Save the Pine Bush. 🌲 Interesting story but I was feeling tired and now I think I have a bit of a stomach bug, so we quit early. That or all the cherries and broccoli I’ve been eating have kind of wrecked my stomach. I don’t know, hopefully by morning I’ll feel better.😵 Bought a few supplies at Walmart but unfortunately they were out of the foot powder I use to keep my feet dry and non smelly. I should try maybe just using baby powder as I only use the basic talc solution as the scented stuff irritates my feet. 👞

On this day in 1944, Near the San Francisco Bay, two ships laden with ammunition for the war explode in Port Chicago, California, killing 320. Also on this day, another deadly tragedy 💣. In 1981, A structural failure leads to the collapse of a walkway at the Hyatt Regency in Kansas City, Missouri killing 114 people and injuring more than 200. I kind of like Missouri. They have a great outdoors culture of hunting and fishing there, good gun laws, less zoning and code issues, few restrictions on open burning outside of drought season. Plus not all the road salt.

Day by day inching my way to the weekend. I’ll be glad when the heat and humidity is done later this evening. 💦 We definitely need the rain for sure. So far only a little bit of rain in Delmar although I did see some flashes of lighting walking down to the bus stop. I haven’t seen a good thunderstorm from my new office yet, maybe today I will get a chance to see one.

Right now, a split verdict on the weekend. 😕 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 85. Maximum dew point of 59 at 6am. Sunday, a chance of showers. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 80. Chance of precipitation is 50%. Maximum dew point of 65 at 1pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 83 degrees.

Saturday is the day I primarily care about for the weekend and it should be nice. I’m thinking of heading back to Piseco Powley Road and paddling from Stewart Landing along Lily Lake to West Canada Lake. 🌼 It should be nice on Saturday for that especially if the lilies are out. I really like the area around Piseco-Powley Road, not too crowded but a lot to do nearby. I might try to get there one more weekend before the season ends this year. I’m hoping the campsites I like will start having outhouses. That will certainly make things easier, especially if I bring friends up north.

The small mini inverter I use in my truck cap went pop and stopped working tonight. That is what I use primarily these days to power the camp lights. It’s quite efficient, convenient and silent, and honestly I prefer it over the bigger 800 watt inverter that rarely gets used in my truck cap these days. 🔌Cheap little thing, under 25 bucks, but perfect for powering low power non electronic devices like the Christmas lights I use. I don’t know if it was the short I had in the line or the heat and humidity that caused one of the capacitors to fail. I might just replace it at Walmart, they have several other cheap ones available for $15.

New low beams in my truck work well, 💡maybe a bit too well as somebody flashed me to dim them. But that’s fine, I don’t drive much after dark these days due to my poor vision 👓 but regardless it needed to be fixed in case of rain or quick trips in town after dark especially as the days get shorter. The low beams are already aimed fairly low. I could see about adding some kind of resistor or buck converter to dim the lights lower but from where I sit in the big jacked up truck, they are already too dim.

Bought a lightweight camping hammock for use while camping. I used a combination of my credit card rewards card and a 20% discount sale to get the $70 hammock for $5. I know I wouldn’t have paid full price but I wanted LL Bean quality so hopefully it won’t rip for a while. It’s rated 400 lbs and comes with the straps. No fly or bug net but I might get that later on – for now I plan to use it for lazy afternoons at camp, ⛺and if I like it I might use it as an easy way to camp in the back country, especially in places where I can’t use the truck camper. Saturday it should be noted is Hammock Day on the calendar. Hopefully it will hold up well and provide a new source for adventures. Certainly us small and light weight enough.

In four weeks on August 14 the sun will be setting at 7:57 pm,🌄 which is 31 minutes and 45 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2017 on that day, we had partly cloudy skies and temperatures between 79 and 57 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 81 and 60 degrees. The record high of 97 degrees was set back in 1988.

There are 2 months until Consitution Day 📜 when the sun will be setting at 7:00 pm with dusk at 7:29 pm. You forget how quickly the sun starts setting earlier once August and September rolls around. The average high for Constitution Day is only 72 in Albany. Definitely almost autumn.

Looking ahead, More Night then Day 🌌 is in 10 weeks, Election Day 2018 🗳️ is in 16 weeks, Average Night Below Freezing 🌌 is in 17 weeks, Regular Deer Season in Southern Zone 🦌 is in 4 months, Christmas 🎅 is in 23 weeks, New Years Day 2019 🎉 is in 24 weeks, 36th Birthday 🎉 is in 28 weeks and Election Day 2020 🗳️ is in 120 weeks.