The New York North Alternative for Vacation

If the government shutdown persists into the second half of October, and the President is very aggressive at shutting down access to the federal back country, the West Virginia and Pennsylvania options that rely on camping in the back country of National Forests may not be an option. This also is a lower milage option, that will be more affordable, put less wear and tear on the truck and still let me explore areas I haven’t before.

Saturday 10/14 to Monday 10/16 – Head up to the Otter Creek State Forest outside Lowville to camp and ride trails in the
Monday 10/16 to Thursday 10/19 – Camp up at the Frank Jadwin State Forest, or alternatively Greenwood Creek State Forest
Thursday 10/19 – Hike and explore Fire Fall – Trout Lake State Forest
Thusday 10/19 through Sunday 10/19 – Camp up at Brasher Falls State Forest (CCC Dam Camping Area), explore Massena, ride the many sand roads through Brasher – Bombay State Forest.
Sunday 10/19 – Spend all day taking a leisurely drive down through the Adirondacks via NY 30 and NY 28N, getting on the Northway in Warensburg before it gets too dark.

They’re taking about frost in the North Country this morning 🍂

You can taste the fresh silage on the air and you know it won’t be long before the leaves will be full of color in the North Country. Up at five o’clock cooking down split pea soup to have with homemade bread.

Good morning! Happy Thursday. A cold start, you might need the choke on your motor. Mostly clear, the sun is rising and 47 degrees in Delmar, NY. 🌅 Calm wind.

Up a little after five to cook 🍳 and get started on my day. Needed to run to the rest room and then I needed to have coffee ☕ and get that pea soup cooking down. A half pound of spinach, onions, stir fry vegetables, a crust of whole wheat flour and water plus two eggs, a bit of milk and corn starch topped with a bit of Parmesan was breakfast. Dinner last night was pizza 🍕 but not that American crap way. A simple whole wheat flour and water crust, several paste and other tomatoes that were starting to mold a bit run through the food processor with a garlic clove and a bunch of spices with flour to harden, topped with chopped onions and spinach and a bit of Parmesan. 🥦 I do eat a lot of spinach, I like fiber. Fills your stomach up fully without many calories.

Lately I’ve been a been a little nostalgic 🎶 and listening to a lot of country music from the early 2000s like back in college. Not that I’d ever want to go back to those days with all those trials and tribulations of youth and far less money but life was good before inflation kind of ruined everything. I think it’s September 11th and just the autumn weather that takes me back to the first year back at Hudson Valley Community College, my first experience with much urban life, and being on my own, having a car, being able to go up to the woods whenever I wanted to. 🎄

Out walking around 6:45 AM this morning. 🚶‍♀️ Definitely a beautiful morning for the walk, should be a great ride down through the gorge to work. 🚲 I tasted some of that pea soup, it’s delicious, I’ll bring some for work and probably have some more for dinner. Might end up freezing the rest so I can have it later in the weekend, obviously with some fresh bread. 🍵 Might be a good way to end Saturday after riding trail most of the day up at Thacher Park. 🚵‍♀️ I am starting to run low on bananas, 🍌 I might stop and get just them at Hannaford during the evening commute home. Other then that my pantry is pretty solid.

Today will be sunny 🌞, with a high of 70 degrees at 3pm. Two degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 26th. Maximum dew point of 50 at 6pm. Calm wind becoming north around 6 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had cloudy skies in the morning with more sun in the afternoon. The high last year was 76 degrees. The record high of 95 was set in 1895.

I called the General yesterday 🚚 and guess what I’m on call back list regarding when they can do the passenger airbag inflator recall work. I figured with all the notices and social media ads I’ve gotten about replacing the airbag inflator, they’d have a ton in stock at this point and I could just drop the truck off in a week or two and have it back the next day. Nope, they took down my information but couldn’t promise me an appointment at this time.

Called back the doctor, 📞 and after a bit of phone tag 👩‍⚕️ they want to do some more testing about my pissing problem. Didn’t catch it right away, as my phone is set up to automatically go to voice mail. 📨 Heck of it is since I’ve not been eating so many zucchini and overnight oatmeal, I’ve not had such a pissing problem.🚽 I kind of don’t want to spend more money getting tests, as I think it’s mostly in my head at this point, to blame on my diet, but they said some of the initial rounds of test were inclusive. 📋They can’t schedule me until another two weeks, so at that point I’ll re-evaluate if I find myself needing to piss too much. I really think the key is stay away from coffee and overnight oatmeal before road trips, especially my October trip if I’m thinking West Virginia.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:49 pm with sun having an altitude of 48.2° from the due south horizon (-22.7° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 5.4 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 6:20 pm with the sun in the west (266°). 📸 The sunset is in the west (272°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 6:57 pm after setting for 2 minutes and 54 seconds with dusk around 7:23 pm, which is one minute and 47 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the First Quarter 🌓 Moon in the south-southwest (198°) at an altitude of 18° from the horizon, 233,527 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 7:58 pm. At sunset, look for clear skies 🌄 and temperatures around 66 degrees. The dew point will be 50 degrees. There will be a north breeze at 6 mph. Today will have 12 hours and 16 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over yesterday.

Yesterday, I went for an evening walk 🚶‍♀️ and went through my dresser and pulled out most the XXL clothes and put them away in the crawl space, and started to go through the hand-me-downs I got from the late John W. Some are XXL unfortunately, I only meant to get XL but I’ll try them on. 👕 Going to wash them though before putting them with the other clothes, as some of them have a bit of an old man smell to them. The pizza I had was good 🍕, very filling, didn’t really need a desert. Lights were out before 8:15 PM though I did listen to a podcast or two on my phone before getting fully asleep but that’s fine, I’m usually up by 5 AM most mornings to start cooking and getting a jump start on my morning.

Totally getting sold on going down to Canaan Heights West Virginia sometime after Columbus Day Weekend 🍂 to mountain bike, hike, camp and see the sights. I mean I’m not 100% on this and it could change, but it would be fun. Probably start the week up Wellsboro PA-area to ride some of the Pine Creek Gorge Trail. Not sure how much farther south I’d go in West Viriginia, maybe Dolly Sods, but I would rather focus on Canaan Heights, Blackwater Falls State Park and the Canaan Wildlife Refuge as I haven’t spent nearly enough time up that way.

Tonight will be mostly clear 🌃, with a low of 46 degrees at 6am. Four degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 1st. Light northwest wind. 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 51 degrees. The record low of 31 occurred back in 1962.

I’ve been starting to look more deeply into the future of the blog. 📝 I can bitch about the cost of running it but it won’t make it go away. I kind of would miss not doing it, so it’s probably worth the money to me. I do want to re-work the data structure, make things more efficient and maybe remove more of the custom code and try to make it use as much of built-in WordPress code as possible. 👨‍💻 I could bring my laptop home and work on this over the weekend, especially if it’s going to be rainy. The big difficulty might be the transition — taking down the old data structure and replacing it with the new one, and getting all the URL rewrites perfected before going live. I don’t know any way to do this completely without taking at least part of the blog offline to do the change over. 🤷‍♂️ I might also look at implementing Google AdSense, so I can get some advertising revenue, to cover the costs of doing the blog. I don’t love that idea — there is too much advertising pollution already, but I get tired of ever inflating costs, even if it really is a smaller part of the budget that that I’m making more money at work. 💸

A chance of showers throughout the weekend with more sun on Sunday. 🌦 Saturday, a chance of showers, mainly after 2pm. Mostly cloudy, with a high near 66. East wind 3 to 6 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. Maximum dew point of 52 at 10am. Sunday, a chance of showers. Partly sunny, with a high near 68. Chance of precipitation is 30%. Maximum dew point of 56 at 1pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 72 degrees.

I won’t say it’s a banner weekend this weekend, 🌦 but maybe not a wash out. Still will be good enough to do the Nature Bus to Thacher Park. Saves some money and it’s a fun day, plus I went out camping last weekend. 🏕 Maybe next weekend I’ll get out again, though the very long-range forecast doesn’t look all that great in all honestly. Columbus Day Weekend, which is two weeks from Saturday might be better. ⛵ 🍂 Only time will tell, though it seems like autumn will be late this year.

Northway and Thruway Interchange Before Reconfiguration

On the right is an aerial photo of the Northway and Thruway Interchange before reconstruction in the late 1980s.

North Point

Looking off from Hanger Glider Cliff at North Point which is rapidly becoming green.

Taken on Saturday May 16, 2020 at John Boyd Thacher State Park.

April 30, 2023 6 AM Update

The rain let up and I’m up for my morning walk at 6:20. 🌧️

It was raining pretty hard at 5:30 so I delayed getting out of bed for a while but I’m moving forward. 13.9 miles walked on the rainy Saturday though I doubt I’ll make it that far today.

Good morning! Where did April go? I don’t know, I think I was too busy searching 🔎 for Jesus on my own ⛪, playing that dirty old John Prine record, walking 🚶 and eating kale. 🥦 And watching as the wrinkles grew 👴🏻 as I lost the chubbiness.

Clouds, a few sprinkles and 49 degrees in Delmar for the morning walk. ☔ There is a southeast breeze at 5 mph. 🍃. The skies will clear tomorrow around 7 am. Just in time for the work week. 🏢

I’m out walking 🚶 at the park 🏞 trying to get as many steps in as possible early. I don’t know how much it is going to rain so it’s best to get in as many steps in as possible before it gets wetter out.

Today will rain, with thunderstorms also possible after 5pm. Cloudy 🌦, with a high of 60 degrees at 1pm. Six degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around April 17th. Maximum dew point of 53 at 1pm. Southeast wind 6 to 14 mph. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New rainfall amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 64 degrees. The record high of 86 was set in 1903. There was a dusting of snow in 2008.❄

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:53 pm with sun having an altitude of 62.1° from the due south horizon (-8.7° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 3.2 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 7:15 pm with the sun in the west-northwest (285°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-northwest (291°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 7:54 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 6 seconds with dusk around 8:24 pm, which is one minute and 8 seconds later than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waxing Gibbous 🌔 Moon in the south-southeast (152°) at an altitude of 54° from the horizon, 249,862 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 9:02 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and thunderstorms 🌩 and temperatures around 57 degrees. The dew point will be 53 degrees. Breezy, 16 mph breeze ⛅ from the east with gusts up to 29mph. Today will have 14 hours and 5 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 32 seconds over yesterday.

This evening will rain ☔ and possibly have a thunderstorm, before 5am, then a chance of rain and thunderstorms after 5am. Some of the storms could produce heavy rain. Low around 47. East wind 9 to 16 mph becoming west after midnight. Winds could gust as high as 30 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New rainfall amounts between three quarters and one inch possible.

Monday with have a chance of showers before 8am, then a chance of showers after 11am. Partly sunny, with a high near 62. 🌥 👉 ☀ South wind 9 to 15 mph. Chance of precipitation is 50%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible.

As previously noted, next Sunday is 8 PM Sunset 🌇 when the sun will be setting at 8:03 pm with dusk at 8:33 pm. On that day in 2022, we had mostly cloudy and temperatures between 59 and 45 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 69 degrees. We hit a record high of 92 back in 1930.