Good morning! Happy Columbus Day 🛥️! For me it means the second half of the trip back home 🏡 from West Virginia and getting unpacked. Two weeks to Average High is 55 🍂. Mostly sunny and 46 degrees at the Mount Pisgah County Park. There is a southwest breeze at 7 mph. 🍃.

I was up at 6:15 am this morning, 🌄as I had chilli last night and too much beer 🍻 and had to visit the outhouse early on. 💩 Being I was in a campground it was a short walk but at least I got things taken down early and I’m stopping at the Mount Pisgah County Park for a bit.

Columbus Day will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 56 degrees at 1pm. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around October 25th. West wind 7 to 13 mph. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 59 degrees. The record high of 81 was set in 1920.

So the October Road Trip is almost over. Just have to make it home safely and unpack. Then out to the folks house. It was a good trip although not the one I had originally planned. 🚙 The burn ban made me alter my plans and for a while I wasn’t planning on going to West Virginia. 📛 Time marches on, that’s all I can say.

But I did and spent three nights there before overnighting in County Bridge Campground outside of Troy, Penna last night. Only night in a developed campground. We other sites were taken but none nearby and it was very quiet there. Nice thing about the developed area is no bucket shitter 💩 to empty and bury the poop, and I don’t have to take down my table so a faster take down this morning.

Dash cam 🎥 didn’t record for part of the trip back but I didn’t have all that much great to save. I did get some nice clips to post on the blog later this week. Stay tuned!

The sun will set at 6:27 pm with dusk around 6:55 pm, which is one minute and 36 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 50 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 9 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 9 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 44 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have patchy frost after 5am. Otherwise, partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 35 degrees at 5am. Five degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 31st. West wind 5 to 7 mph. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 39 degrees. The record low of 27 occurred back in 1978.

I could have done the New River Gorge and spent the balance of my trip in West Virginia 😔 but it seemed like the burn ban was going to be in place for most of the week. Sure I have the propane heater and electric lights 🚥 💡 but there is something about having a fire each night, if only a small fire is o provide some entertainment and company and take care of the burn trash. 🔥 So many wet wipes to get rid of when you are using them as your primary way to clean up your body. Maybe I should have stuck to the original plan but the Allegheny National Forest was neat as was visiting Pennsylvania High Point, Cook Forest and Hoye-Crest in Maryland.

It wasn’t a bad night, and it’s a convient place to stay at between Albany and West Virginia, ⛺ about half way between the two places at least if your like me and want to stay some place relatively quiet and cheap, while limiting driving to 4 hours a day, leaving the remaining time to visit parks or hop on back roads. That said, I’d prefer to camp somewhere I can gather up my own wood, listen to music 🎶 as loud as I want, not have to worry about bothering anyone with the smoke. At least I could have a decent fire 🔥 because I had some leftover wood from Stewart’s that I bought for the trip down and I used the Big Buddy Hester to keep my chair comfortable. Cold enough I wish I could have hot tented but I wasn’t going to pitch a tent for one night. It was fine under the covers.

I thought the Cannan Refuge was a disappointment but maybe the second seven miles down the rough dirt road would have been better. 🐦 The part I explored was the standard mixed forest, nothing much better than the Five Rivers Environmental Education Center I walk 🚶 to from home. At any rate, I was expecting something more marshy and full of birds like Montezuma. But it’s just not that kind of area. Moreover, the weather wasn’t all that great compared to the original forecast for yesterday.

Stopped at the Blue Knob State Park. 🗻 Kind of dead this time of year with the ski resort closed. And it was a rather gray day which sort of blocked the view and made it harder to see from the summit. I wonder if Blue Knob is the second highest peak in Pennsylvania. Nice country driving through Imler and surrounding lands. Good farmland, big dairies 🐄 around there.

Most of the drive up through Pennsylvania was fairly overcast and not real nice. ☁ The colors weren’t very good either. Passed some nice farm country in Pennsylvania. Mostly dairy 🐮 but some hogs 🐽, chickens 🐔, sheep 🐑 etc. Grains like corn 🌽 and soybeans too 🌾. Lots of Amish and Menonites along PA 26 and the Nittany Valley farming. I get not owning a car or living off grid but having no solar seems a bit extreme. But I guess if you can’t make it yourself, you shouldn’t own it. 🚜 I do have a lot of respect for the Amish even if their environmental record is a bit mixed. They do use some technology like silage wrap on their farms – which being Pennsylvania I’m sure is burned when discarded.

Driving 🚘 up through Pennsylvania I can assure still plenty of rural households and farms in Pennsylvania that burn virtually everything – you could see the black smoke, the piles of burnt cans and glass and ash in folks backyards and bags of trash next to the burn barrel waiting to be torched. 🔥 I didn’t have to go far in Pennsylvania to see the first pile of junk people were burning in their driveway. Wood with other goodies in that fire. Also saw some one burning trash in Maryland too and a few rural houses in West Virginia with burn barrels out back. Beats the landfill in my view, despite the sometimes stench 👃, although I think I would seperate out the cans and glass for recycling ♻ when I own my own land – and maybe build some kind of better incinerator than the common burn barrel most folks use. 👍 I can tell you as a fact there isn’t much burn trash I’m taking home from camp. Seems like a waste especially of the tin cans to throw the metal away – and it’s not like they burn or help the fire at all.

I decided to get off Interstate 99 at PA 414 through Liberty, Penna🗽 . Talk about a windy, narrow state highway in country that at worse was rolling. 🚙 I don’t understand why it’s such a bad road. Scenic yes, but hardly a good route to travel. At least not as bumpy and rough as River Road. But obnoxiously slow. I was having problems my phone not charging the whole time 📱, fortunately though I had enough power for Waze to direct me to destination.

I could go to West Virginia possibly next November but who knows. 😕 I might have to do a recount for work, and snow ⛄ is always a possibility like last year. I know I don’t want anything to do with West Virginia if snow and ice conditions are even a remote possibility. No thanks for sure. 2021 if I decide to go back, it might be a a very different experience if I decide to go car-less that year and have to rent a car. 🚙 It might be fun to see West Virginia in a rented car especially a hybrid electric car on those hills. Wouldn’t have to be as gentle on the rough roads either. Always worry about breaking Big Red down there. Another possibility would be a trip – probably by plane ✈ and rental car to see Missouri and the Midwest that year.

The past two nights have been bright 🔆 with the moonlight 🌕. Woke up Saturday night hot tent camping to take a piss in West Virginia and the inside of the tent was bright from the moonlight. Bitterly cold Sunday morning – I woke up and it was 26 degrees out. But after turning the Big Buddy heater on things he warned up quickly.

It was a good trip and generally came below budget 💸as I spent less time in West Virginia then originally expected. The bad weather ☔ a few days meant I drank more beer 🍻 then originally planned but I drove fewer miles ⛽ even when you consider I started my week in the Allegheny National Forest. 🌲Only spent one night in a campground, keeping those expenses lower and my food expenses were only slightly higher than normal – and I have left overs for future weeks to eat. Wet wipes, paper plates and towels, plastic forks, 🍴 etc too – seems like a waste to use once and burn 🔥 but when camping water 💦 is a precious commodity and its nice to stay clean as possible.

Tomorrow is a pay day 👍and it’s a three paycheck month so by the time the November credit card 💳 bill is due with the brake job on my truck and vacation expenses I’ll hopefully have my fund balance rebuilt. I can return some of the unspent cash to the bank.💰 I really needed to get away from Albany for a bit, go to some places much culturally and socially different from Albany. Despite the tight finances, I’m still sticking to my savings and investing plan. Travel and camping expenses will decline come winter but eventually I’ll be paying for heat 🔥 again but so it goes. I want to do some winter camping but the conditions have to be right and it won’t be an every day thing.

Definitely looking for a good shower when I get home. 🚿 It’s been ten days – Saturday October 5th since I’ve washed my full body. I’ve tried to keep as clean as possible but it’s hard when you are in the backcountry in October and you can’t really go for a swim 🏊 to clean your body. Did lots of hiking too ehic produces a lot of sweat. 😰

Generated and consumed a kilowatt of power through the solar panel over the past week. ☀ I wonder how much total power I consumed as I frequently used the alternator to top off accessory batteries. 🔋 Generally the system worked well. Once or twice the low voltage disconnect kicked in but that was one time due to a heavier load and one time in a dark morning in the cold pulling a decent load the voltage ⚡ dropped under the threshold. The sun rose, voltage increased and the load was automatically reconnected when safe. Driving 🚘 home I’m charging the laptop and running all accessory loads exclusively on the solar.

A picture perfect weekend on tap. 😎 Saturday, mostly sunny, with a high near 56. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 61. Maximum dew point of 49 at 7pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 59 degrees. Should be great weather for the Save the Pine Bush hike! 🌲🌲🌲We are doing a walk down Rapp Road, it should be a nice one. Maybe fall foliage hike 🚶 on Sunday?

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Average High is 55 🍂 when the sun will be setting at 6:07 pm with dusk at 6:35 pm. On that day in 2018, we had mostly cloudy, rain showers and temperatures between 51 and 41 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 55 degrees. We hit a record high of 78 back in 1971.