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The Second Day

I Honestly I Didn’t Have a lot of Hope for the Rest of the Week. The first day didn’t go real well. I thought I could replace the lawn chair and maybe the bad battery, although I really wanted to spend time researching deep-cycle batteries before I made the leap and just bought another cheap Wal-Mart Marine battery.

But then the Beauty of November in the Woods Hit Me. This month is not only reserved for the sportsmen in the woods. It is remarkably beautifully especially when the clouds break and its not super cold out.

Made Breakfast up and Got Started on the Day. There was a nice shooting lane in the woods from the campsite, so I set up a political lawn sign, put on my shooting glasses and ear plugs and started blasting away at. I couldn’t believe how fast the shot shells disappeared at 5 rounds at a time in my pump action Renmington 870.

Had My Traditional Camp Breakfast. I am a big fan of scrambled eggs with cheese and sausages for breakfast. I often load it up with veggies although this time I didn’t. Took down camp after having this delicious breakfast.

Decided to Head Down to Pennsylvania. I had originally planned to spend two nights in the Western Catskills small game hunting, hiking and plinking but I wanted to give the deep-cycle a good charge in hopes I could recover it so I would have a decent amount of light the next night without constantly having to crank the truck to keep the lights on.

Roscoe NY is Famous for Trout Fishing but it could also be noted for it’s true scenic beauty. Now I phone in love with the beauty of the Appalachian mountains, how they tower over the land, but I tell you the area around Roscoe really pretty.

These mountains may not be the size of the Adirondacks, but their rounded tops surround the hollows so beautifully.

Stopped at the famous Roscoe dinner for a bit, got some coffee and hopped on the Quickway for Hancock and ultimately Pennsylvania. Stopped at the Rest Stop/Text Stop where there was good 3G service and checked much email and social media.

Thought About Heading Down to Scranton to a sporting goods store to pick up a replacement camp chair and more ammo. Figured ammo would be cheaper in Pennsylvania and a sporting goods store eould have more choices in 20 gauge shot then a Wal-Mart.

Checked out the GPS but saw there was no big sporting goods stores nearby. Decided to f-it and head to Wellsboro PA figuring I could just stop at Mansfield Wal-Mart along the way, get a camp chair and hopefully some ammunition.

Typed into Google Maps to take me to Wellsboro avoiding highways. Took me through some real wild country — not a lot of big farms — a lot of cabins, camps and rundown houses.

Before crossing into Pennsylvania I took County Route Old 17 and enjoyed some scenic vistas, stopping for a while to Instagram. Crossed over to PA and ended up on some real backroads, some twister and slower then I would like.

People Burn Everything in Pennsyltucky. I would not hestitate to say at least 90% of households in rural PA have trash burning barrels and most folks burn their garbage, plastic and all.

Funny to think that when burning barrels have been illegal in New York for 5 years and relatively uncommon and disfavored for 10 years except in the most rural parts of the state.

People in Pennsyltucky also heat with wood and outdoor wood boilers have big piles of brush and generally smoky in the hollows this time of year. For a firebug like me, this seems so liberating compared to the up-tight open burning laws in New York.

Stopped at the Saint Marie Overlook. It was pretty as usual. Took some more Instagram photos.

The More Digits in a Pennsylvania Highway the narrower and twister the road is. The main line one digit roads are as good as any in New York. Most 2 digit roads aren’t bad but when you get on the three digits, the roads are little more then blacktopped cow paths.

The shoulders are non-existent with guard rails extending right up to shoulders. To make things worst, PA uses rumble strips extensively so as you hit them if you try to stay away from the guard rails when driving.

Four digit roads are supposed to be analogous to county roads but as far as I can tell their maintained like town roads in New York.

Fracking Towns seem to have slowed down a lot since the initial craziness when the fracking boom was well underway.

Montrose was still dusty and Main Street was under heavy construction when I drove by. Saw a convoy of trucks hauling water and sand to a fracking site, but certainly not bumper to bumper.

Tonawanda, the city where they send reporters to cover fracking still had the new motels and the oil and gas businesses but it was still quiet compared to 2010. Some signs of oil wealth in the form of big jacked-up diesel pickups but thats not shocking for rural America but for the most part you didn’t see tons of oil wealth.

Ended Up Going to the Mansfield Wal-Mart to get a new camp chair and ammunition. A fairly big Wal-Mart, it had something unknown to a New Yorkers — lots of guns. Wal-Mart in more rural parts of New York will have a small revolving case of long guns plus air guns on the shelf.

But at least in rural Mansfield, they not only have several large cabinets with rifles and shotguns, they prominently feature modern sporting rifles aka AR-15s or as anti-gun politicians like to call them, assault rifles. They have a $500, $750, and $1000 models with things like fancier scopes.

They also sell handguns at Wal-Mart after a PA resident passes the standard instant NICS check like any gun, which seems so strange to New York where you have to go through the whole Sullivan Act pistol permit system. Handguns aren’t super accurate or dangerous compared to long-guns but New York treats them special as they are concealable. Still its great Pennsylvania residents have this freedom to keep and bear arms.

Left with a lawn chair and a 100 round brick of 20 gauge #7 birdshot for $24.50. Still need nore #6 for rabbit and squirrel hunting but the birdshot is cheap for plinking with the shotgun.

Camped at Asaph Run Camping Area in Asaph. Driving through the hamlet, saw a place selling firewood, so I picked up some wood for $5. The Asaph Run primative campsite is $10 night but it gives you a fire ring, picnic table and a pit privy. I had the

Lights Seemed to Work Bettet but still problematic like the previous night. Due to the chilly wind and trouble keeping the lights and radio on, I retired to bed by 8 pm, listening to podcasts into the night.

Tuesday Update

Good Evening! Happy Tuesday. I have to say the weekend came and went much too quickly. Saturday was fairly rainy at times, and when it wasn’t raining, it seemed like their was a threat for rain any minute. Sunday was a bit nicer, but still kind of cloudy and raw. It was raining when I first got up, but it stopped early enough, to allow me to walk down to the bus stop – but it was still pretty damp on the walk down there.

First Weekend In Town in a While. I did stop out at Partidge Run on Sunday prior to going out to my parents house to do a little plinking in one of the gravel pits in the woods, most of the weekend weekend was pretty quiet. Spent a fair bit of time down at the Bethlehem Library playing on the Internet and working on some behind the scenes parts of my blog. Also finally got caught up on uploading a lot of the photos that I’ve taken the past couple of weekends.

Finally Got the Seat Comfortably Adjusted in My Truck. I hate when other people adjust the seat in my truck when they drive it. I know that most other drivers are shorter then I am, but could they not just touch the seat controllers when driving the truck in and out of the shop? There is a specific position that is most comfortable, and it’s a pain to figure which position that is after it’s changed.

Started Looking at New Cellphones. My cellphone is finally getting on it’s last legs, with the back piece constantly slipping off and not holding a charge that well. I think I am getting ready to be the last person on this earth to get Smartphone, so I can actually check things like Twitter and Facebook without using my clunky to surf the web, not so Smartphone.

I like my $30 StraightTalk month plan, but it’s getting difficult without modern technology. I think I will switch to their $45 month unlimited plan with the additional data service for the Smarphones. I can buy 3 or 6 months in an advance, and that will lower the rate to $41.50 or $42.50 a month, which makes it somewhat less expensive to have the fancier phone. More money then I want to spend, but I guess it kind of sucks having a basic phone.

I think a Smartphone would be great especially back in the woods, when the I have cellphone service, to have access to things like Twitter and Facebook. I also could post some nicer pictures that way and do more blog updates, beyond what I can currently do by text message or low-resolution picture message. It could make rainy nights a whole lot less of a downer, and keep me entertained by the fire.

Thinking an Android phone, as the operating system is largely open source, abit with some proprietary drivers. This will make it easier for getting additional software on the phone, and possibly writing some of my own software for the phone to meet my own needs.

Did Some More Shooting This Weekend in the Woods. It was fun, although i have to say the Express Loads are so much louder then the regular Game Loads for the Number 6 shot, which I have been using. Getting better at my accuracy, and still loving my Remington 870. Basically no recoil with the 20-gauge, and with ear-protection and the game loads, it’s not really all that noisy.

Getting Back to the Evening Walk

Lately I have not been going on the evening walk as much as I used to. It’s been hot, and I’ve been lazy. But more to the point, my radio was broken, and I don’t like going for a walk without my radio to keep me company in the evening.

I had thought my radio had beat the dust. I dozen or so times, I had thought about chucking it in a campfire in the woods, and gotten rid of it. But like many times before, I took it back apart, and was able to clean up the contacts enough to get it working again.

I probably should have either fixed my radio sooner or bought a new one. I had previously tried fixing the radio to no luck, but maybe letting it sit for a while, and really scrubbing the contacts did the trick.

Getting back to the evening walk is a good thing. I’ve been doing it occasionally, but not enough, and I can tell I’ve put on some weight over the summer. My jeans are tighter, and I just feel heavier. The stress of the car crash certainly didn’t help.

But now that I have my radio working again, I am more committed to doing the evening walk, every night that it’s not oppressively hot or I’m not out on the town.

Not having a functioning radio seems like a weak excuse for not participating in this healthy activity, however it’s the truth.

How To Break Your Truck in the Middle of Adirondack Wilderness. And Fix It When You Get Home.

So this weekend, I was camping in the Southern Adirondacks on Route 8, about 85 miles from home. All was going well today, when I got back from my hike. It was a bright and sunny day, and I had my new solar panel hooked up to my truck, and it was cranking out the amps. Solar power charges slowly, but on a bright and sunny day, it adds up quickly.

So I get back to my truck. I noticed my starting battery was low, and the truck would be needed to be started if I wanted to listen to the radio back at camp. I like using the car radio, as it’s nice and loud, and has all my favorite music on it. Portable radios tend not to have good reception in the Adirondacks, and the alarm clock I had with me couldn’t seem to pick up any radio stations at all.

I could do what I did in the past — just idle the truck and charge up the starting battery. The thing was the accessory battery that powers the inverter was almost fully charged from the solar panel I had plugged in to it, on this delightful Good Friday afternoon in the Adirondacks. But that would be stupid. Why not have the panel charge both the starting battery and accessory battery, when the key was in the “accessory” position.

A person a few weeks ago posted a comment on my blog, about a source of “switched” accessory power under the hood of my truck, known as the “Amplifier Fuse”, No. 41. If I simply switched the battery isolator fuse tap from the “Engine Fuse” No. 5 to No. 41, I would be good to go. So I pulled the “Engine Fuse”, and it came out firmly. I proceeded to unplug the 15-amp fuse from the lower blade of the fuse tap, plugging it back into the “Engine Fuse” socket.

To my shock and horror, the “Engine Fuse” socket was loose. How could this be? How could I have broken the socket, pulling the fuse tap. I know a lot of people hate fuse taps, as you can accidentally break a fuse socket with them, if you bang on it the wrong way — at least in theory. But it beats cutting into a wire, and to be honest, that’s just how the place that installed the battery isolator in my truck did it. I wasn’t going to question it.

I fiddled around under the hood, unable to figure out why the “Engine Fuse” socket was suddenly so loose. I figured, what the hell, I’ll try to start up the truck. Maybe it’s okay. Otherwise, I guess I’m screwed. The truck, to my surprise, started, but it ran awful. It sounded like it kept wanting to die, but eventually it found a high but somewhat rough idle.

I figured there goes another $1,000 bucks due to my stupidity and abuse pulling a fuse from the fuse box. Maybe it won’t be that expensive, if they can take it apart the fuse box and replace the broken socket — and it’s unlikely to be that much labor. But there goes buying the shotgun I’m looking to buy for hunting or that lift kit that I am rapidly losing interest in.

I didn’t have cellphone service where I was in the Adirondacks. I had really only four options:

1) Try to flag down a passing car, and ask for help. Maybe they could at least give me a ride back to Wells or Warrensburg.

2) Try to call a trucker, or maybe a Forest Ranger/State Policeman on Channel 9 on CB Radio. I knew there was a lot of traffic, and maybe they could relay my message along to police.

3) Wait and see if a Forest Ranger came by — they usually do their rounds up there around 10 AM on Saturday mornings.

4) Try to limp the truck home, and if I wouldn’t make it all the way back, at least reduce my towing bill and possibly be in a place better for signaling help, rather than empty stretch of NY 8.

Breathing a sigh of relief that at least the engine worked with the broken “Engine Fuse”, I quickly packed up my gear, and decided to try limping the truck home. I figured with the rough idle and general poor engine performance, it wouldn’t do that much damage over 75 miles driving home. I guess it could gunk up the catalytic converter or maybe damage the cylinder walls, but I figured the risk is relatively low, if I drove it easily. Except for a few sections, it’s mostly downhill, rural roads.

If it got worst, I would try the first three options. But first I really didn’t want to have to deal with towing, getting a loaner car, or having to ask for a ride from a friend. I figured if I made it to Amsterdam, it would mean I could probably find a better garage, plus it would be reasonable to ask somebody to pick me up.

I made it to Amsterdam. It ran awful, trying to stall at every traffic light. It helped to keep one foot on the accelerator and in lower gear. Then I made it to Schenectady, then on the Thruway. I drove about 50 MPH on the Thruway at rush hour in the right lane, which annoyed a lot of people. Finally, I made it home. I decided to take one more look at the fuse box, mostly in despair, and suddenly, I realized I had plugged the “Engine Fuse” into the wrong socket. I got confused. I put the fuse in the right socket, fired up the truck, and it ran like new. The second time I started up the truck, the Check Engine light was off.

I drove it out to my parents house, because I needed a pair of needle nose pliers to reattach the excitor wire on the isolator, which I managed to break in the craziness of this all. But the truck drove just fine, and there is no evidence there was any damage to running the engine like I did back from the Adirondacks. I think it probably will be fine, as I didn’t push things too hard, and just disabling several engine sensors, just forced the main computer to go into fall back mode, which was able to get me home, just at much compromised performance.

I feel stupid. But I am going back to the Adirondacks early tomorrow morning, to enjoy the rest of the nice weekend.

It turns out if you try to run your Silverado truck with the 15-amp "Engine" fuse unplugged it will run, just real poorly.

And this may cause you to panic, causing one to "limp" your truck home, cutting short your camping plans in the Adirondacks.

But heck, I am going back tomorrow. I will just chalk it up to pure stupidity. It's just $40 dollars wasted and maybe 150 miles that I didn't need to drive. I don't think I did any lasting damage to the engine.

For the love of styrofoam when camping in the boonies

I am a big fan of using styrofoam plates, bowls, and plastic folks when I’m camping in the woods. Not so much paper plates, because styrofoam burns better in a hot fire, especially when wet and contaminated with food. It’s also cheap. Regular plates are fine for at home, but when your water supply is limited, using disposable, and burnable plates makes a lot of sense – plus then you don’t have to deal with dish water contaminated with food waste, attracting bears or other wildlife.

That said, I am well aware of the environmental downsides to using styrofoam.

Styrofoam is made out of styrene which is non-biodegradable, and as a petrochemical is a hazardous material. Breathing in styrene gases in an enclosed space, according to the government can make one nauseous and is a probable carcinogen. If you just take a match to a styrofoam plate and don’t burn it in a hot fire it certainly burns with a black smoke and bright yellow from the polyaromic hydrocarbons, and smells fairly nasty.

Styrofoam, as litter, quickly falls apart and become small enough to be digested by fish and other animals, leaving the toxic styrene to be eaten by the fish. One shouldn’t litter, and I certainly do not litter. Anything that isn’t fully burned, I pack out. While most garbage minimally biodegradable in a landfill, styrofoam is completely un-biodegradable, and only may leach out the styrene compounds into the lechate system or groundwater.

The mass-urban use of styrofoam isn’t a good thing. Restaurants shouldn’t use styrofoam, indeed I have argued that it should be banned for take-out containers in favor of paper containers. But in the back-country, where pollution levels are low, and general use of land is low, I don’t see the big deal about using styrofoam.

It’s cheap, burns well, and beats washing dishes with a limited water supply.

It’s cheap, it burns well in a hot fire, and beats doing dishes when you have a limited water supply.

Hump Day Comes to a Rainy Close

Made it through the middle of the week. Pouring rain this evening, after I walked down to the library. Wasn’t so cloudy when I first got up, but it’s headed in the direction of rain by the time I got out of work. So far the weekend doesn’t look all that great.

This morning, rode the bus with no name downtown. Or so it seems, taking a bus without a working destination sign. They must be short on buses, because last night I caught a bus home, which was a shuttle bus. Probably makes sense to use the smaller buses, as they are more fuel efficient, especially if they aren’t full, which they usually aren’t in the evening by 5 PM.

Tomorrow is the first day of calendar spring. That means in one month, it will be April 20^th. Might even see some signs of spring by mid to late April, besides a slight tinge of manure in the air. I am hopeful that by late April when I take my trip out to the Finger Lakes, there will be some signs of green at least down by Seneca Lake. We shall see, as spring always comes late in higher elevation.

Bought my fishing license, which will be effective on April 1st. I haven’t done a lot of fishing in recent years, but I am going to get a good rod and reel next weekend.

Almost ready to buy the solar panels for my truck camping and maybe the CB radio. Probably will be 400 bucks for everything — including the CB antenna, quick connects, mounts, solar controller, and half a dozen other parts. Once it is delivered, all I will have to buy is some 8-gauge wire (which is not cheap), some plywood, screws, fuse holders, fuses, and hinges to put it all together. Also maybe some rubber cement to patch up the hole in the firewall when I run the antenna out there.

Done a lot of research and I think I will end up with a good setup that will let me continue to use as much electricity as I need camping during day without starting up the truck — and get weather alerts and CB radio info. It would be fun to get things wired up this next week.

I have almost finalized my latest investment decisions for retirement after a lot of careful study of the options. It’s kind of hard to know what to buy these days, as its apparent the stock market is kind of overvalued from quantitative easing and the like. But I think I got a good mix of index funds and bond funds, and so small-cap and medium-cap stuff. Also plan to buy some energy stock. Yeah, that fossil fuel stuff that is so awful but provides good historical returns. Diversity is key for investing, as they say.

Putting off the lift-kit for now — probably the end of summer. I am leaning towards wearing out the tires, especially now that one of the tires has developed a wear pattern due to an alignment issue. That’s why I have a little more money to spend on things now, by cashing in a few of my short-term investments for toys I’ve wanted for a while.

Kind of a rainy middle of the week. But the rain will turn the snow into mud, and maybe soon it will be camping time.

Started looking at solar power for camping

For some time now, I’ve wanted to learn more about solar electricity. I have read books on it and know how it works in principal, but I have basically no first hand experience as it comes to solar power. At the same time, my electrical load is growing on my truck when camping, especially once I install the CB radio installed in my truck.

Why I Am Thinking Of Going Solar

I hate having to turn on the truck to charge the battery every couple hours, especially when I am sticking around a campsite all day rather then traveling. With higher gas prices this year, due to being an election year, I am thinking of spending more time at a campsite – especially if I do more hunting and fishing this year.

Idling the truck works okay for creating electricity, especially in summer evenings when the darkness is short, and I’m usually not back to camp until 8 or 9 PM. But sometimes when I am hanging out in camp – especially in the morning – it’s a pain to have to start the engine up and listen to the racket it makes, in the quiet of the woods. A solar cell would start charging the battery as soon as the sun rises, and by the time I awoke, the deep-cycle would probably be almost fully charged.

I worry about idling my truck a lot too. Car and truck engines are not designed to idle at a set speed for long periods of time. While engines are a lot better then years past, I’ve always felt it puts a lot of strain on the engine doing this. That said, I had my previous truck until it was 13 years old, and the engine ran fine. I got rid of it because I wanted a new full-size truck and the old one had increased mechanical costs from things like brakes and suspension parts that kept breaking down in the boonies.

I’ve started looking at solar panels, especially in the light of the fact that solar power has come down so much in price. They say it’s about $1 a watt, although for the most part the solar panels I’ve looked at are closer to $1.40-$1.50 a watt. Even at the $1.50 watt price it’s not unreasonable, as I’ve seen several 100 watt panels below $150.

Not only that, but the modern solar panels are mono-crystalline, so they more produce more electricity in less space. The 100-watt mono-crystalline panels I’ve seen have dimensions of roughly 3.5 feet by 2.5 ft. Pretty darn small, especially compared to the amount of energy they generate. Have you ever tried generating 100 watts riding on stationary bike? It’s a lot of work – despite the fact we use incredible amounts of fossil energy in our homes. Even if I get only 50-60 watts out of the panel, that’s still a 1/2 a kilowatt hour per day.

Storage box I am thinking of building to store my solar panel when not using it camping.

Why I Don’t Use Solar Power Right Now

I’ve pondered solar power on and off. I’ve thought about mounting solar panels on my truck cap, but generally have frowned on the expense and the cost-benefit ratio. The reality is idling my truck to charge up the accessory battery works fairly well, and is low cost compared to driving it there and back.

Most of my energy use is at night when I am at camp for the night, sitting by the campfire, listening to music, lighting up the flag, the decorative lights, and LED lamps for general camp lighting. The sun doesn’t shine at night, so I would still have to use the alternator and idle as the battery runs low. Finding direct sunlight sometimes can sometimes be challenging at campsites far back in the woods. That’s why you have to make sure you have enough wire of sufficient gauge to put a solar panel a far distance away. But at 8.5 amp of current, the wire size shouldn’t have to be enormous.

I also had concerns about mounting the solar panels on the roof of my truck, going through car washes or if trees brushed along the roof top of my soon to be jacked up truck. I also figured it would reduce my fuel economy by wind resistance, canceling out all benefit to mounting it on the roof.

But the main reason I put off going solar, was it just seemed like very little power for a lot of money. Spending like $200 bucks for 5-6 amps of power, didn’t seem like a good use of money, especially when the alternator puts out so much current. However, unlike an alternator the solar panel runs whenever the sun is up, while the alternator only spins when the engine is running – typically 10 minutes every 1.5-2.5 hours.

Solar panel prices have come down a lot lately, and while they produce a lot less electricity then a big gas engine that is running, they produce it all the time when the sun is shinning.

Andy Arthur.org

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