That said it’s officially autumn however you want to slice it. Summer is just history and in a day or two it will be more night than day. My mind is totally on West Virginia and the Mountain Laurel of Canaan Heights not that I’ve even taken off those days yet. Or even fully planned a vacation.

Good morning! Happy Saturday. Finally the Nature Bus 🚍 Day! Mostly cloudy and 50 degrees at the Delmar, NY. ☁ Calm wind.The skies will clear Monday around 5 am.

It’s kind of silly how much I love the Nature Bus 😍 as I could drive to Thacher Park myself and I have a parks pass for parking 🅿 but it’s fun as it enforces a schedule and doesn’t cost anything. 💵 Not going to be a really nice day but I don’t expect it to be a complete soaker either. Going to ride trail for a while 🚵 then probably hammock before catching the 3:30 back home. If it becomes a soaker there are pavilions and the Discovery Center with the nice porch and wifi to shelter under.

Today will have a slight chance of showers after 2pm. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 63 degrees at 3pm. Nine degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 12th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 9am. Calm wind becoming northeast 5 to 7 mph in the morning. Chance of precipitation is 20%. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 59 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1895.

This morning I was up and cooking 🍳 around five like I often do. Two big baguettes 🥖 and chicken and veggies roasting down in the oven. Up top was onion, garlic, and zucchini cooking to be cooked with eggs 🥚 and fresh spinach before it goes bad. Used up the last two fresh tomotoes that I had. Nevertheless a good start to the morning. Made some walnut butter 🥜 to spread on the fresh bread – so yummy 😋. Then I did morning walk 🚶. I didn’t sleep great but I have been getting to bed early as it gets dark early.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:49 pm with sun having an altitude of 47.4° from the due south horizon (-23.4° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.5 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:16 pm with the sun in the west (265°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (271°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:53 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 53 seconds with dusk around 7:19 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south (170°) at an altitude of 19° from the horizon, 228,989 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:54 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 62 degrees. The dew point will be 50 degrees. There will be a northeast breeze at 7 mph. Tomorrow will have 12 hours and 7 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over today.

I think the evening will end in rain ☔. But I have a delicious meal in the fridge ready to go 🍴 and I’ll probably work on the blog re-write. I want to phase in the new data structure for the blog this coming week and start up the ads to cover hosting costs. 🖥 And then lights out 💡 early tonight again.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly before 2am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 53 degrees at 5am. Four degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 16th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 6pm. North wind around 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 40%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 41 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 1963.

My blog got approved for Google Ad Sense. 🤬 I don’t love advertising and I’m going to use sparingly, but my hope is to generate about $30 a month from advertising primarily from the map pages, but also some of the archives and maybe the main feed but not right up top. I figure if I can make an average of $30 a month, a third will go to the tax man, then the $20 will cover hosting costs and maybe even cover a bus fare or something like that. I have the code ready to add the advertising to the blog, I am manually placing ads, not in the best positions but in ways that aren’t so obnoxious but do earn a bit in revenue, based on the high number of page views I get from my maps, especially in the summer. 🗺 I figure it’s an incentive to get off my ass and make up more maps.

Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until Daylight Savings Time Ends 🕒 when the sun will be setting at 5:46 pm with dusk at 6:14 pm. On that day in 2022, we had sunny, warm and temperatures between 71 and 46 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 54 degrees. We hit a record high of 76 back in 1994. Those days will be here before you know it.