71 degrees at the 10 pm hour. Clear with a nearly full moon. A bit sticker tonight then last night. Keeping the fire small tonight, as it’s hot.

Today I went to Robert Treman State Park and hiked through Enfield Glen, Lucifer Falls, up Cliffside Stairs. I was a little annoyed to see that the latest batch of repairs to the gorge with smooth cut Pennsylvania Bluestone, which looks like the stone used in every luxury new suburbanites house or dentist office. It seems distinctively out of place compared to the locally mined shale slabs that the gorge trails have been traditionally made out of. I guess it probably is more durable and flat compared to shale, but it sure is ugly. Maybe the local stone queries have closed, although you’d think state parks must be major consumers of the rock locally with constant repairs to the gorges, bridges, and buildings all made out of local rock.

Then I went to the Robert Treman lower falls swimming area. The water was frigid, the sign said it was 65 degrees. I can believe it. To make it cooler a good portion of the midday the clouds were crowding out the sun. I spent like 3 hours in the swimming area, alternating between the water and sitting out in the sun to warm up. Robert Treman’s Lower Falls are pretty but too cold for good swimming in my opinion. The beach is small and mostly dirt. I decided to finish my day swimming at Watkins Glen State Park swimming pool.

You would think that the drive between Robert Treman and Watkins Glen is long but it really ain’t bad via NY 13 and 227. Most of the road is flat except for the steep mile climb out of both gorges. The Newfield gorge is this long, level gorge with several raggedy farms surrounded beautiful hills including the Connecticut Hill WMA. Talk about a beautiful, rural area. I love the mountains and hills in this part of the state.

Next up was Watkins Glen State Park swimming pool. The water was warm but it beat the frigid water of Robert Treman State Park. I love the Adirondack chairs they have there, the landscaping and the pool. Your right, you don’t have to drive all the way to Watkins Glen to enjoy a swimming pool but it sure is refreshing and set up nicely. They also have a shaded area with picnic tables and beaches and a nice snack bar. I used up the last of my sunscreen, because I’ve been using a ton lately. I am afraid I might have gotten a bit sunburnt in a few place but not too badly. Tommorow I will buy more sunscreen first thing.

After swimming I went to TOPS supermarket, to buy sunscreen, ice, and food for dinner. While I was in there, the power went out in Watkins Glen. After about 30 seconds, the store generator came on, which kept the refrigerators and cash registers on but all the lights on the coolers and most of the ceiling lights were off, making shopping difficult. It was pretty dark in the store but cash registers were working. Never did find sunscreen. Will stop at a pharmacy in the morning and pick up sunscreen.

Traffic lights and all power was out across Watkins Glen. Fortunately, I knew the back streets in Watkins Glen so I avoided most of the congestion from the lights being out. Burdett also didn’t have power. I saw NYSEG trucks heading towards Watkins Glen on my way out to the National Forest, so it must have been a localized outage.

Cooked up chicken legs and rice for dinner and built a small campfire. Tired, so I retired to my truck around 10 pm. Good night.