Good evening. Kind of muggy but rain free with some breaks in the clouds, sitting out back around 76 degrees in Delmar. ☔ There is a south-southeast breeze at 11 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 70 degrees. Honestly, we’ve had worse evenings this summer, and we need the rain.

All things considered, this was a pretty productive evening. I got the broken hammock exchanged, not the same color but the same model. 😐Sucks that the carabiner broke like that but I’ll be extra careful to make sure that it fully locks the next time I set it up and if it still gives me problems I guess I will buy heavier carabiners.♊ Took them almost 45 minutes to do the exchange due to having trouble finding the hammock and then figuring out how to get the exchange processed in the system.

I thought about going for a walk this evening at the Albany Pine Bush to see if I could spot Karner Blues but the constant threat of thunderstorms I decided against that. 🌲It looked for a while that the sky was just going to open up. Never ended up raining but I was sure it was going to pour.

Instead, I ended up going for a walk around the maul. Pretty quiet on a summer Monday evening at the maul. Almost a bit cool based on how much they had the air conditioning jacked up there. Not a single store interested me.:? I guess not owning a television or paying much attention to contemporary culture there isn’t much for a maul to interest me. Heck, even the one store I liked – Sears – for swanky clothing for work is no more.

The only reason I went there was for LL Bean exchange and only because I had a rewards card from there that got me the hammock inexpensively😎. The quality of their products has gone down since the brand has gone mainstream, pushed by Wall Street investors for more profit. I probably won’t shop there anymore now that I have a different credit card that pays me bigger rewards on gas and groceries including everything I buy at Walmart💰 and gives me cash back rather than outdoors goods that are over priced and of dubious value. I shouldn’t complain, they did the exchange without too much trouble but it was slow.

The maul and suburbanite culture really doesn’t appeal to me. Television with the shouting car salesman💻 and flashing images with happy people and murder and rape scenes on the evening news just confuse me and give me headaches. 🚜I’d rather spend my money up in the wilderness, eventually where I can have my land and my off grid cabin, heat with wood, make my own electricity, burn my own trash. I guess living in a vinyl cocoon with a big screen television and high speed internet is wonderful but it’s no interest to me.

I got to Krum Kill Road and the darn traffic light wouldn’t give me a green arrow. 🚦So I ended up taking the next road past the Giant Oaks suburbanite doctor facility where I think my parents get their eyes checked. I ended up in Voorheesville.🍤🍞🍗🍔 Got the necessary groceries for the rest of the week. That Hannaford in Voorheesville is pricey but it’s compact and fast to shop.

Made it home before dark. I have so much trouble driving after dark but the new headlights burn brightly. I have a regular eye check up on August 11th but I really should talk to a specialist about my bad night vision. 👀I was disappointed when I chucked the old bulb in the fire over the weekend to see if it would burn, it didn’t explode or even pop.💥

I’m working on renovating some of the code on my blog, which I think will be ready to be made live tomorrow that will make it easier to update my location and status when I’m traveling. 🔀♋I noticed that there are more Facebook API changes coming down the pike on August 1st, so I hope the Facebook part of my blog won’t stop working while I’m at camp on summer vacation.

Definitely looking forward to vacation. 🐮 Camping in the National Forest is a a little like living on a farm, listening to the cows bellow and moo, and the ripping sound they make grazing. It will be fun to have a nice campsite set up, shop every few days for groceries, spend all day hiking, kayaking, fishing, then coming back to camp and making a delicious meal, then maybe laying out at Forrester Pond watching the stars as the crickets sing their song well after midnight.

But first it’s eleven o’clock here. Time to go to bed as I have to work four more days before vacation.

Good evening! Monday work day has come and gone. Four hopefully short work-days remain until vacation. 🏖 Seems like the forecast has been improving lately. Six weeks to Labor Day 👨‍🏭. Humid, mostly cloudy, with showers around and 81 degrees in Delmar. ☁ There is a south-southeast breeze at 14 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 73 degrees. The heat index is 78.

The sun will set at 8:24 pm with dusk around 8:57 pm, which is 55 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for cloudy skies ☁ with a chance of thunderstorms ⛈ and 78 degrees. The dew point will be 71 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 10 mph.

Tonight will be scattered showers and thunderstorms. Some of the storms could produce heavy rainfall. Mostly cloudy ☔ , with a low of 71 degrees at 4am. Nine degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 72 at 6pm. Southeast wind around 11 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New rainfall amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch, except higher amounts possible in thunderstorms. In 2017, we had mostly cloudy skies. It was somewhat humid. It got down to 58 degrees. The record low of 45 occurred back in 1985.

Tonight will have a Waxing Gibbous Moon 🌔 with 88% illuminated. The moon will set at 2:59 am. The 🌕 is on Thursday night with heavy rain. The sun will rise at 5:39 am with the first light at 5:06 am, which is 58 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 9 hours and 15 minutes of darkness, an increase of one minute and 53 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have isolated showers. Partly sunny 🌦, with a high of 86 degrees at 2pm. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 72 at 7am. South wind 10 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 29 mph. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had mostly cloudy skies. It became humid as the day progressed. The high last year was 72 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1941.

So the weekend came and went in what seemed like a flash.😎 With ten weeks until autumn, summer is rapidly disappearing with my summer vacation starting Friday after work, well depending on the weather. The weekend was fine although I have to say I’m bored a bit with Piseco Powley Road and even paddling Lilly Lake, despite being over a year since I’ve been there. I was hoping to get the campsite on the East Canada Creek but that wasn’t to be.

I ended up camping ⛺ at campsite 6 (same as earlier in the month) which has a new sign but no outhouse or picnic table. I noticed some new handicap accessible picnic tables on Lilly Lake for those who paddle in and then use a wheelchair at camp, and there is a new outhouse at the potholers and the Powley Place upper campsites. I am hoping they continue to fix up the campsites over the next few months. Regardless, I like campsite six because it’s remote and you aren’t likely see anybody else nearby. I lit off some fireworks and shot the 22 a bit.

I was a bit disappointed with Lily Lake today as the lilies and even the splatterdock was mostly gone for the year. The water was a bit choppy with the breeze, and there was a ton of people on the lake. I paddled from Stewart Landing to West Canada Lake then along the shoreline of West Canada Lake for about a mile. A lot of people were out on the lake.🎣

Did a little fishing but as the day progressed the sun got kind of hot and I was tired from fighting the wind a bit with the kayak. I headed back to my truck around four, went for a dip in the lake, the usual summer crowd on four wheelers and UTVs 🚗 and kids jumping off the dam was there. Parking is somewhat limited at Stewart Landing, 🚣 in part because the dam or maybe the output of the dam is under repair and there is a fair amount of heavy construction equipment down there.

Made burgers,🍔 fell asleep in the hammock, then had a nice fire until about 12:30 Sunday morning. Around three in the morning it started to pour. I ended up getting up around six thirty to take a shit and it was still very damp out, from the breeze knocking the rain off the trees. By the time I got up at 9:30 the wind had blown the rain off the trees and there was a a bit of sun. Stopped raining in morning, made some banana muffins with fresh farm market cherries and blueberries which were amazing.🍌🍒 Thought about hiking out to House Pond again, to do some fishing, but by then, it started to pour.🌧 Sunday evening I went out to my parents house. After dinner they lost power, which came back on late. I stayed overnight in my truck.

A picture perfect weekend on tap now for my vacation. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 82. Maximum dew point of 63 at 6am. Sunday, partly sunny, with a high near 82. Maximum dew point of 62 at 7pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 82 degrees.

For the very long range next week, the forecast has improved but not perfect. But I’m hoping that at least a good part of my vacation will be rain free. I’m sure I’ll still want to erect a tent and tarps when I set up camp. Cool weather but maybe I’ll spend more time hiking this year compared to years past. I’m probably going to spend the balance of the week in the Finger Lakes, I could go other places but I’m thinking I may reserve that for my November trip.

On this day in 1967, today was the start of 12th Street Riot In Detroit, one of the worst riots in United States history begins on 12th Street in the predominantly African American inner city. 🗯It ultimately kills 43 people, injures 342 and burns about 1,400 buildings.✋🔥

Talking about things coming to a violent end, the new hammock is bought had a carabiner fail violently the second time I set up the hammock,😮 so I am going to bring it back to the store and ask for an exchange. At least I didn’t get hit by the flying aluminum piece when it fractured. It had to be defective casting. 🔨Unfortunately, I think the packaging and receipt that came with the hammock got burnt up with the garbage at camp, but I printed up the original receipt from the web, and hopefully that will be enough for L.L. Bean to exchange it. 👩 I am a bit bummed out on a hammock that is designed to hold 400 lb failing, especially when it’s marketed at $70, when you get Chinese knock-off models for $20 on the web. 👜 If the weather is better later and I have time before dusk, I think I will go for a hike at Albany Pine Bush and see how many Karner Blues I can spot. 🐸

In four weeks on August 20 the sun will be setting at 7:48 pm,🌄 which is 35 minutes and 53 seconds earlier then today. In 2017 on that day, we had rain, partly cloudy skies and temperatures between 81 and 63 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 80 and 60 degrees. The record high of 97 degrees was set back in 1937.

Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until Labor Day 👨‍🏭 when the sun will be setting at 7:25 pm with dusk at 7:54 pm. On that day in 2017, we had rain, drizzle, heavy fog, shallow fog, patches of fog, mist, cloudy skies and temperatures between 58 and 51 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 77 degrees. We hit a record high of 100 back in 1953.

Looking ahead, Labor Day 👨‍🏭 is in 6 weeks, Constitution Day 📜 is in 8 weeks, October 🛥 is in 10 weeks, Columbus Day 🛥 is in 11 weeks, Veterans Day Observed (Monday) 🇺🇸 is in 16 weeks, Buy Nothing Day 🛍 is in 4 months, Cyber Monday 🛍 is in 18 weeks and New Years Eve 🎆 is in 23 weeks.