Good evening! Mostly clear and 65 degrees in Westerlo. Calm wind. The dew point is 57 degrees. Sleeping over at my parents house tonight in the truck. Back from four nights, five days at Moose River Plains.

Didn’t charge my laptop coming home, so I plugged it into my truck, and quite predictably, the accessory battery protection relay shut off the lights after 5-10 minutes. Not because the battery was low but was because the relay is set at 12.1 volts and a draw of 15 amps the laptop takes, it caused the relay to trip. That’s fine, I turned on truck, and after about two minutes the lights were back on and things were well charged.

It was pretty nice except for the rather wet day of Saturday, and running out of propane and the mad goose chase to get my tank filled, which ended up with me buying one of those 1 lb disposable tanks for a ridiculous amount of money. Next time, I’m either going to make sure my tank is fairly full or at least carry a disposable tank on me. The disposable tanks are recyclable, but they’re a pain to have to take to the transfer station, and I hate disposable products, except maybe for burnable stuff when camping.

Hiked back to Cascade Lake and Cascade Falls on Sunday, Monday hiked back to Queer Lake, Chain Pond, and Windfall Pond. It was nice seeing some of those ponds, on trails a bit off the beaten path, so It wasn’t so crowded. Monday evening, drove down to the Falls Pond Trailhead at Dusk, then drove to the Icehouse Pond and did a night hike back to Icehouse Pond. The sun sure sets late, Independence Day, I paddled out a ways on the Cedar River Flow, did some fishing then headed home.

Lit off some fireworks, baked muffins one morning, pizza other nights, and had some other good eats like burgers and sausage through the weekend. I had a lot of other food to cook up but it didn’t happen. But it will be good for future weekends camping. I wanted to bake brownies while I was up at camp, but that didn’t happen because I didn’t want to use up that little propane tank — especially because brownies have to be in the oven for like 35 minutes, and even on low — I suspect my stove would use a lot of propane.

All and all a pretty good long weekend, even though I wish I hadn’t wasted so much time with the propane issue or had all the rain on Saturday. I do wish I had taken off tomorrow — July 5th, as the weather looks to continue to be good — but so be it. I also think I should have stayed out of town, and spent more time exploring the hikes that Moose River Plains, though, I’ve done that many times before.

Camping is fun but at some point I have to go to work and make some money to buy more beer, gasoline, ammunition and all the other things that make camping fun.

Tonight will have patchy fog after 5am. Otherwise, mostly clear, with a low of 57 degrees at 5am. Four degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 57 at 10pm. Light north wind. In 2016, it got down to 66 degrees with drizzle and partly cloudy skies. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1982.

Waxing Gibbous Moon tonight with 76% illuminated. The moon will set around 4:17 am. The Full “Buck” Moon is on Sunday night with partly cloudy skies expected and mostly clear. The sun will rise at 5:24 am with the first light at 4:50 am, which is 37 seconds later than yesterday. Tonight will have 8 hours and 49 minutes of darkness, an increase of 54 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have patchy fog before 7am. Otherwise, sunny, with a high of 80 degrees at 3pm. Two degrees below normal. Maximum dew point of 59 at 6pm. Light and variable wind becoming southeast around 5 mph in the afternoon. A year ago, we had drizzle, partly cloudy skies and a high of 89 degrees. The record high of 99 was set in 1919.

Cool this weekend with temperatures running 6 degrees below normal but otherwise sunny. Saturday, partly sunny, with a high near 75. Maximum dew point of 64 at 6am. Sunday, sunny, with a high near 77. Maximum dew point of 57 at 8pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees. Fairly cool weekend, but it looks nice.

I am not sure what I will be doing this weekend. I mean I was just out camping, but the weather does look nice. Maybe tent camp locally somewhere? Or I could go out to Schoharie. Seems too nice to be stuck at home, and gas is cheap, but I don’t know. It’s gets a lot of work to repeatly set up and take down a campsite. Maybe Wells, New York might be fun — Pumpkin Hollow or maybe White House and fish in Lake Algonquin?

In four weeks on August 1 the sun will be setting at 8:15 pm, which is 21 minutes and 13 seconds earlier then tonight. By that point, days will be getting noticeably shorter, and we have gone past the warmest days — on average — of summer. In 2016 on that day, we had rain, drizzle, patches of fog, mist, cloudy skies and temperatures between 74 and 67 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 82 and 62 degrees. The record high of 101 degrees was set back in 1933.

Looking ahead, Altamont Fair Opens is in 6 weeks, Labor Day is in 2 months, 6:30 PM Sunset is in 3 months, Friday the 13th (October) is in 13 weeks, Beaver Moon is in 4 months, Election Day 2017 is in 18 weeks, Average High is 40 is in 19 weeks, Election Day 2018 is in 70 weeks and Election Day 2020 is in 174 weeks.