Good morning! Happy Sunday. Exactly one week of vacation left. Six weeks to the last Sunset Before 7:30 PM 🌆. Autumn is coming, but first I should enjoy summer. Sunny and nice and 75 degrees at the Finger Lakes National Forest. 🌞There is a north-northwest breeze at 15 mph. 🍃. The dew point is 70 degrees. With the breeze, you don’t really feel the humidity, laying back in the hammock.

Today will have a slight chance of showers and thunderstorms. Partly sunny ☀, with a high of 86 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 71 at 11am. Northwest wind 5 to 13 mph. 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 84 degrees. The record high of 101 was set in 1930.

On this day in 1925, Dayton, Tennessee high school biology teacher John T. Scopes is found guilty of teaching evolution in class and fined $100. 🙊 Darn criminals ruining our country. 👮 The judge incorrectly set the fine, rather then letting the jury do it, so his conviction was overturned on appeal. The law would remain on the books until it was repealed 1967. Also in 1983, the world’s lowest temperature in an inhabited location is recorded at Vostok Station, Antarctica at −89.2 °C (−128.6 °F). ❄They should build a pipe and send it up north to cool off people efficiently. Probably doesn’t follow the laws of thermodynamics.

The sun will set at 8:38 pm with dusk around 9:10 pm, which is 50 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for partly cloudy skies 🌃 and temperatures around 77 degrees. The dew point will be 65 degrees. There will be a north-northwest breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 14 hours and 48 minutes of daytime, an increase of one minute and 45 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be mostly cloudy 🌥, with a low of 65 degrees at 5am. Three degrees above normal. Maximum dew point of 67 at 6pm. West wind 3 to 7 mph. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies in the evening, which became cloudy by the early hours of the morning. It became sticky as the night progressed. It got down to 64 degrees. The record low of 47 occurred back in 1970.

So far summer vacation is going fairly well, 🏊 although I was very disappointed that the swim beach at Cayuga Lake at Taughannock Falls was closed due blue green algea pollution. First time that’s happened while I’ve been coming here in the summer. I ended up going to Robert Treman State Park and swimming in Enfield Glen. It turned out to be a nice afternoon with lots of sun and despite traffic delays getting in past the park gates. It’s obnoxious that they charge park fees in New York. 67 degrees in the water which is remarkably warm for Enfield Glen.

I also stopped at Montezuma for a while but it was incredibly hot. 🐦 There was some wildlife, especially butterflies but it was oppressively hot after coming out of my well air conditioning truck. Plus I was looking forward to the beach. The beach closure was such a disappointment.

But the flip side is I did get the campsite I really like on Chicken Coop Road 🐥 so I’m here through Wednesday morning. I set up a tent for my surplus gear and dirty clothes, ⛺ and the flags, hammock and table. I set up camp relatively slowly and it got dark fairly early as some clouds pushed in.

I laid back in the hammock until quarter to ten, and then went for a walk to Foster Pond 🐸 to watch the moon rise 🎑. I figured it would be cool to watch the moon rise fifty years after the moon landing. Unfortunately I waited until 11:20, but it didn’t rise until later. I ended up walking back to camp 🚶after which it rose. But it was buggy and I was worried 😯 about getting caught in a thunderstorm. ⚡ That was kind of obnoxious. But it was a nice night back at Foster Pond with lots of fireflies 🐝 and stars ✨ with flashes of lightning ⚡ in the distance.

I got back to camp, cracked open another beer 🍻 and had a small fire 🔥 mostly to burn up the garbage and just watch the flames. I got to stop throwing the sweet corn husks and cobs on the other camp trash, 🌽 they don’t burn well. What was supposed to be nice fire a stinky mess of smoldering plastic and food waste. Yuck. Maybe I should have built a hotter fire 🔥 with more wood. Instead going forward I’ll toss the husks and food waste 🍲 in the bucket shitter 💩 and bury them in the woods when I break camp. They’ll rot away pretty good. I know when I own my off-grid home, 🏡 I’ll definitely want to do lots of composting – at least mixing the food waste with animal manure rather than burning it with the trash in the pit. Plus rather then becoming air pollution it will become fertilizer. 🌺

I had a nice breakfast of eggs and sausage this morning 🍳, and I’ve been sitting in the hammock enjoying the breeze. I got some firewood but I should grab some more before I head out to swimming in Watkins Glen 🏊. I fear 😱 the nice weather may not last all day so I probably should think about heading out, maybe around noon. 👍I’m on vacation so I’m in no rush. That said, tomorrow doesn’t look great so I’ll probably hang out in camp. Going to be cool and gray tomorrow, I might stay close to camp, instead just hiking around in the National Forest. Also going to get something good at the Watkins Glen Dairy bar.

I’m planning to stay in the Finger Lakes through Wednesday morning then will head to Allegany County on Wednesday. Thursday I might either go up to Letchworth State Park or maybe Cattaraugus County and then the Allegheny National Forest. ⛺ While I have a camping permit for the Tioga State Forest in Penna for three nights, I doubt I’ll stay more than two.

One month 📅 from now the State Fair Opens 🎡 when the sun will be setting at 7:59 pm with dusk at 8:28 pm. The average high temperature is 80 degrees.

Good evening! Partly clear under the full moon 🌕 and 71 degrees in Delmar. Calm wind. The dew point is 58 degrees. It is beautiful moonlit night before the heat and humidity really kicks in later in the week.

I got some nice fresh and cold milk from Stewart’s, 🐮 and I appreciated the local cows with some fresh blueberries and cherries 🍒. I liked the blueberries but I guess the cherries I bought where only modestly sweet. I thought about buying ice cream but this is a healthier option. It was a nice reward after a pleasant evening walk. 🚶

Been working on Save the Pine Bush stuff at the library, doing research and recreating tax maps for a project for Save the Pine Bush. Some of those metes and bounds for the Crossgates parcel are tough to reproduce. 🌐 The metes are hard to find the reference point of the imaginary lines, and the bounds often follow detailed building edges. And it’s a shit ton of parcels. But I’m making progress. 🌲I’ll be back at it Wednesday night, as tomorrow night I’m over at John Wolcott house for his history project and file sorting. 📂 I’m thinking if a print the tax maps (probably after breaking the county’s silly print disable – Linux don’t care 🐧), and download the underlying OrthoPhoto geotiff, then I can probably work on it one day at camp off line.

Tomorrow marks 50 years since the first departure from the earth to the moon. 🚀 While only 24 human beings would ever walk on the moon, it was a remarkable accomplishment that was probably abandoned much too early in our history only three years later in December 1972. Some people are skeptical about the moon landings, it only happened six times by man before getting the congressional axe. ✂

I should see if PBS or one of the other YouTube channels will have a special I can watch about Apollo 11. 🎑 It would be fun to watch on the laptop while I’m at camp during vacation. That said by the time on my trip it should be the last quarter moon 🌓 so it should be good for looking at the stars assuming that I have clear nights up at Foster Pond. 🌟 Maybe see some shooting stars.

Tonight will be partly cloudy 🌤, with a low of 59 degrees at 6am. Three degrees below normal, which is similar to a typical night around August 21st. Maximum dew point of 58 at 10pm. Light southwest wind. In 2018, we had mostly clear skies. It was humid. It got down to 69 degrees. The record low of 44 occurred back in 1946.

Tonight will have a Full Buck Moon 🌕 with 99% illuminated. The sun will rise at 5:31 am with the first light at 4:58 am, which is 51 seconds later than yesterday. 🌄 Tonight will have 9 hours and one minute of darkness, an increase of one minute and 29 seconds over last night.

Tomorrow will have patchy fog before 7am. Otherwise, mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 86 degrees at 3pm. Three degrees above normal. That’s like a hot summer day with humidity pushing in tomorrow. Maximum dew point of 67 at 6pm. Calm wind becoming south around 6 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies in the morning with some clearing in the afternoon. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 96 degrees. The record high of 97 was set in 1900.

So I have the camping permit 🎫 for camping in Wellsboro Thursday through Saturday nights but I don’t have to camp all those nights. It’s just an option, although I’ll probably stay at least one night as I don’t want to drive all the way back from the Allegheny National Forest in one day and I’d like to hike at least part of the Pine Creek Gorge trail. 🚶 I wish I had a working bicycle, that’s a good way to explore it.

I’m still on the fence about leaving Friday night versus Saturday morning. If I leave Friday night I will be out in the Finger Lakes by Saturday afternoon as I’ll stay at Brookfield on Friday night and drive the rest of the way on Saturday. 🏊 Probably take old Route Twenty out through Montezuma as mom wants me to get her wine 🍷 and I like avoiding both Cortland and Ithaca going that way. If I leave Saturday, I’ll go to Glimmerglass State Park Beach on Otsego Lake, then Brookfield Saturday night, and get to the Finger Lakes National Forest later on Sunday night, when I think it’s most likely that I can get the Chicken Co-op Campsite that my GPS likes to call it. ⛺ Which ever day I arrive, probably before setting up camp I’ll visit Taughnahock State Park and check out the beach on Cayuga Lake. I checked, the Winery opens at nine AM both days including Sunday. I didn’t know wineries could sell before noon in New York but apparently they can. That said I doubt I’d be out to Montezuma before noon either day.🐦 Probably won’t spend much time at Montezuma as it’s going to hot and sticky and there won’t be many birds out and about.

I kind of would prefer to visit the Watkins Glen Pool on the weekend 🏊 as it’s fully open then. Weekdays half of the pool is closed I believe although maybe not if it’s hot and sunny and there is enough people. But then again the swim lanes are fully open and the nice chairs are always available when the pool is open. The other thing is I only plan to spend half the week in the Finger Lakes, the balance of the week will be in Allegany or Cattaraugus County in Western New York and then down to Pennsylvania for a few days. 🚙

In four weeks on August 12 the sun will be setting at 8:01 pm,🌄 which is 30 minutes and 5 seconds earlier then tonight. In 2018 on that day, we had humid, partly sunny and temperatures between 79 and 67 degrees. Typically, you have temperatures between 81 and 61 degrees. The record high of 99 degrees was set back in 1944.

Looking ahead, Work Like a Dog Day 🐩 is in 3 weeks, Last Sunset After 8 PM 🌆 is in 4 weeks, National Dog Day 🐩 is in 6 weeks, Labor Day 👨‍🏭 is in 7 weeks and Columbus Day 🛥️ is in 12 weeks.