It was fun but I couldn’t get any traction at all climbing the hills. Granted I don’t have studded tires, but the hills were so slick with that mixture of sand and organic matter that is common on the hills around Delmar. After riding a short amount of trail I tossed my hands up and headed back for the road, and then rode out to Voorheesville. Road 15 miles today before coming home and having lunch — sweet potatoes fried up with peas and left rice-lentils from last week. Little bit of salt and turmeric, and some olive oil and pure delicious nature.

Good morning! Happy 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ ! Not that you could tell this morning, it was cloudy. A few minutes ago the rain started — caught a few showers riding back from Voorheesville — with temperatures around 51 degrees. ☔ There is a south breeze at 13 mph. 🍃. Felt that wind really pushing in my face. The dew point is 49 degrees. It’s going to be a wet and windy next 24 hours, but maybe not too snowy locally — as temperatures aren’t expected to drop below freezing until Monday around 9 pm. ☃️

Breakfast started out closer to 6 am with coffee, fried kidney beans, onions, corn and spinach and eggs. 🍳A good protein rich breakfast. Lunch was fried sweet potato 🍠 with leftover brown rice-lentils. A good ride before the rain picked up. It will be nice this afternoon seeing the folks. 👪 Italian riggies for dinner.

Going to work on improving my bread 🍞 this coming week. With the whole wheat 🌾 flour I’ve been cooking healthy but the bread is often dense and crumbly after a few days. Buying some wheat gluten and xanthan gum to experiment with better bread including rye bread this week. 15 bean soup tomorrow then chicken 🐔 soup later in the week I plan to cook.

Today will rain, mainly after noon. 🌧 High of 52 degrees at 1pm. 14 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 5th. Maximum dew point of 52 at 2pm. 🏖️ South wind 7 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. The high last year was 31 degrees. The record high of 64 was set in 1966. 6.1 inches of snow fell back in 2014.❄

Doesn’t look like the worse weather really gets underway until relatively late. 🌧 🌨 It looks like if anything a lot of heavy rain and snow. I am going to try not to stay out at my parents house too late into the evening, lest I get caught driving home in really soaking wet weather. I do

Solar noon 🌞 is at 11:49 am with sun having an altitude of 24.5° from the due south horizon (-46.3° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 13.2 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 3:38 pm with the sun in the southwest (231°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (239°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 4:23 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 24 seconds with dusk around 4:53 pm, which is one second later than yesterday. 🌇 The best time to look at the stars is after 5:30 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 51 degrees. The dew point will be 51 degrees. There will be a south breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 9 hours and 10 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 51 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will rain before 3am, then rain and snow. 🌧 Low of 34 degrees at 4am. Nine degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around November 12th. Northwest wind 9 to 13 mph. Chance of precipitation is 100%. New snow accumulation of 1 to 2 inches possible. I guess but it’s really going to be too warm to accumulate a lot on the road. In 2022, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became light snow by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 25 degrees. The record low of -8 occurred back in 1988.

Today in 1978, Prime Minister of Israel Menachem Begin and President of Egypt Anwar Sadat are jointly awarded the Nobel Peace Prize for their work ending the Arab-Isreali conflict. 🤝 Seems so quaint now, and insignificant with Isreal and Hamas back at war. Not the same characters but in many ways still kind of the same conflict. Also, in 1817 Mississippi becomes the 20th U.S. state, and was the last one to have the rebel flag on it’s state flag until a few years ago, when it became too embarassing with Black Lives Matters. 🏴󠁵󠁳󠁭󠁳󠁿 I always thought the rebel flag controversy was stupid, why can’t boys still watch the Dukes of Hazard? Being a rebel or proud of southern heritage is different form being a racist.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Christmas Eve 🎅 when the sun will be setting at 4:28 pm with dusk at 4:58 pm. On that day in 2022, we had cold, partly cloudy, snow showers and temperatures between 15 and 7 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 36 degrees. We hit a record high of 72 back in 2015.

Good morning! Happy Sunday. Time to get up in a bit before it’s real wet then head home. Rain showers and 46 degrees at Long Pond State Forest in Smithfield Flats, NY. ☁ There is a north breeze at 8 mph. 🍃.

Back in New York State. I decided to drive all the way back to New York yesterday from Paw Paw as I figured it would mean back tracking to get back to Interstate 99 and heading north. 🛣️ Rain is expected before day break in Wellsboro so I figured that at any rate, not worth the back tracking and the $10 fee to camp in Pennsylvania. ⛺ At Long Pond State Forest which is two hours from home l figured that the rain would start later so maybe a quick breakfast and coffee ☕ 🥣 before the rain picked up.

Figured it would be interesting to come back via 81 and see at least the skyline of Hagerstown Maryland, Harrisburg, Wilkes Barre and Scranton Penna 🌆 but truth be told by the time I reached Hazleton it was dark, and from Hagerstown to the I-78 and I-81 split in Jonestown, traffic was much too heavy for ones eyes 👀 to leave the road for much scenic viewing. People often suggest taking Interstate 81 to West Virginia but I have to say at this point I don’t recommend it. 🚙 Too much traffic, especially truck 🚚 traffic compared to the leisurely drive along Interstate 99.

Truth is though I was bored with taking Interstate 99, I’ve done it several times in the past years to West Virginia. 🗻 It’s scenic but after a while the towns are all the same. Somehow I was hoping that 81 would change things up. Same thing with US 6 in Penna. It’s slow, and long, the farms 🚜 and rural homesteads 🏡 🐐 are still the same but with fewer burn barrels 🛢 as a decade or so ago. All that plastic shit stinks when you burn it, lol 😂.

Somehow I just had it in my mind that Interstate 81 would shave miles and hours off the trip. 🚘 But it’s really not that much of a time or milage savings. And while I’m only two hours from home compared to 3 1/2 that extra hour and a half got tacked onto yesterday’s drive, 🌃 meaning several hours of driving in the darkness and arriving at Long Pond State Forest at 8:30 pm rather than before six o’clock as I had planned. I had no cell service 📶 in Paw Paw so it was just a wild assed guess on the distance to Asaph Run or County Bridge compared to Long Pond.

The moonlight helped, as did getting up and walking 🚶 around the rest area near Wilkes Barre and ultimately getting a box of five hour energy shots 🤪 which not only made me awake for driving kept me up half the night. Almost stopped and got dinner at Dennys in Hazleton but I decided I was running so far behind schedule, best to have some energy shots, hard boiled eggs and bananas and push forward. ☕ Regardless, I made it to camp safely and expect a nice drive the rest of the way home. 🙏

I was pretty wired from the energy shot ⚡ last night and it was a pretty evening with the full moon 🌕 so I stayed up to midnight.🦆 Listened to the geese well into the night honking and every time I walked to the lake the beaver 🦫 would jump back in with a big splash 💦.

Today will have showers through 9 am, then rain after 10am. 🌧 High of 46 degrees at 6am. 10 degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical day around November 23rd. North wind 6 to 8 mph. Chance of precipitation is 90%. New precipitation amounts between a quarter and half of an inch possible. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 63 degrees. The record high of 77 was set in 1946. 3.8 inches of snow fell back in 2011.❄

Coffee ☕ and cream of wheat is cooking on the stove. It’s now just the final two hours home 🏡. Probably need to get a bit more fuel ⛽ and I’m likely going to stop and get apples 🍏 at Annuto’s in Oneonta. They open at nine 9⃣ but I don’t necessarily have to be there right at nine. And maybe other produce like Butternut Squash. 🍆 They have quite the selection of farm products. No doughnuts 🍩 though, even though they were good to start off vacation as a special treat. 😋

Then get home, unpack, shower 🚿 for the first time in nine days 👃 and knead bread 🍞 and soak peas for pea soup. Maybe go to the laundromat and buy produce at Hannaford, or that could wait until Monday.

Solar noon 🌞 is at 12:40 pm with sun having an altitude of 34° from the due south horizon (-36.8° vs. 6/21). A six foot person will cast a 8.9 foot shadow today compared to 2.2 feet on the first day of summer. The golden hour 🏅 starts at 5:14 pm with the sun in the west-southwest (246°). 📸 The sunset is in the west-southwest (253°) with the sun dropping below the horizon at 5:54 pm after setting for 3 minutes and 2 seconds with dusk around 6:21 pm, which is one minute and 22 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At dusk you’ll see the Waining Gibbous 🌖 Moon in the east-northeast (63°) at an altitude of 0° from the horizon, 235,306 miles away. 🚀 The best time to look at the stars is after 6:56 pm. At sunset, look for rain 🌧 and temperatures around 43 degrees. There will be a north-northeast breeze at 6 mph. Tomorrow will have 10 hours and 27 minutes of daytime, a decrease of 2 minutes and 36 seconds over today.

Rode about twenty miles of the Chesapeake and Ohio outside Paw Paw and then went into the village on my bike yesterday. Not a lot of note in the village that I saw but maybe I rode the wrong road. 🚲 That said, the Paw Paw Tunnel is really neat. 🚉 Not only can you hike – bike the canal tunnel when I was there people were kayaking in it. 🛶 Rode 19 miles or about three hours including breaks. Stopped at the Capacon Overlook 🏞 after driving WV 9 which is as curvy as you might expect any good ol West Virginia road to be going through the mountains. Phil Ochs wasn’t wrong when he sung about the roads would wind and wind through the hills of West Virginia.

Tonight will have showers before 2am, then rain likely after 2am. Cloudy 🌧, with a low of 42 degrees at 7pm. Five degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around October 14th. Calm wind becoming southeast around 5 mph after midnight. Chance of precipitation is 60%. New precipitation amounts between a tenth and quarter of an inch possible. In 2022, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became partly cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 28 degrees. The record low of 20 occurred back in 1969.

Next it’s watching the forecast for next week. 🐮 I’m still thinking about a trip out to Madison County either next week or the weekend after for four days, tacking a day onto the Election Day Weekend or Veterans Day Weekend. ⛺ I know it seems like it’s coming on right after vacation but rifle season 🦌 and Thanksgiving is right around the corner and who knows when we’ll get our first snowfall and those areas inaccessible. 🌨 Winter’s coming.

Looking ahead, there are 6 weeks until 7:15 AM Sunrise ⌛️ when the sun will be setting at 4:23 pm with dusk at 4:53 pm (Standard Time). On that day in 2022, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 31 and 20 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 40 degrees. Winter’s coming. We hit a record high of 64 back in 1966.

The blog for the first month made a little over $80 a month or so worth in advertising. 🖥 Figuring th hosting and domains work out to $17 a month, its a nice little check. Won’t make me rich and it’s possible that I could potentially squeeze additional revenue by more obnoxious ads or changing the content on my blog but I want to maintain absolute editorial control over my blog. 📝 That’s one of the reasons I maintain a personal blog and don’t just do social media.