Good morning! Today is September 1st. Three weeks to Autumn Begins. I know what your thinking. Already? Sunny and 49 degrees in Albany. There is a northwest breeze at 9 mph. It seems like summer sure ended quickly. Maybe a big warm up though for the kiddies as they go back to school on Tuesday. At any rate, I don’t think we will be seeing any significant snow storms for at least a few more weeks.

Today will be sunny, with a high of 66 degrees at 3pm. 11 degrees below normal. Northwest wind 9 to 16 mph, with gusts as high as 26 mph. A year ago, we had partly cloudy skies. It was somewhat humid. The high last year was 79 degrees. The record high of 96 was set in 1953.

The sun will set at 7:28 pm with dusk around 7:57 pm, which is one minute and 42 seconds earlier than yesterday. At sunset, look for partly clear conditions and 60 degrees. There will be a west-northwest breeze at 10 mph. Today will have 13 hours and 7 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 46 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will be partly cloudy, with a low of 42 degrees at 5am. 15 degrees below normal. Northwest wind 5 to 9 mph becoming calm in the evening. Going to be a cold evening. In 2016, we had mostly cloudy skies with some clearing in the early hours of the next day. It got down to 57 degrees. The record low of 39 occurred back in 1991.

This weekend I’m heading out to Kelly Stand or Branch Pond in the Green Mountain National Forest.  Unfortunately for me, I have to head home and do some final packing because part of my apartment is all torn up for repairs to the leaky shower faucet. Apparently not only was the faucet leaking, but so were pipes and the unit was a big rust bucket, so they couldn’t just replace the washers in the faucet. Landlord promises to have it all back together by evening though. I couldn’t fill my water containers or take a shower with all the construction going on. But I was told the project would be done today, and I should have less moisture in my apartment, and it will save on his water bill. It will help keep the ice cool for camping though.

I was going to go up to Moose River Plains, but I didn’t want to drive up there in the dark or deal with the traffic on the Northway. By going up to the Green Mountains, it will be much shorter drive, and I expect it will be late enough by the time I get home and leave from there, that even if I take Hoosick Street, traffic will be modest. I also think I may head home on Sunday, due to the rain and cold weather that is expected — some models just show rain showers — but I think it will be more of an all day rain with a significant amount of precipitation. I might go for a short hike tomorrow back to Branch Pond and will enjoy two nights camping, and depending how bad it’s on Sunday come back home. Monday, ironically, looks quite beautiful. Maybe I’ll go hiking locally on Labor Day.

Last night I got packed, and then wired up an additional USB port on my truck cap shelf. While I already had plenty of USB ports for my truck cap, I wanted one that didn’t produce any light — especially not blue light — when sleeping at night. The one in switch panel is black lit and has a bright blue LED light that can’t be disconnected. Walmart sells these $10 USB/cigarette lighter ports, which work well, and the USB blue light in them is easily covered with tape. I have one in the back  of the truck cap, but I wanted one on the shelf. I wired it up, and should be good for charging my phone or any other equipment while camping.

Still need to get a few more supplies. I was going to make pizza this weekend, but I forgot those supplies. Maybe I won’t. I need to get lighter fluid, for the charcoal and to make starting the campfire easier (and much safer then gasoline). I have firewood — the heated treated stuff I can lawfully bring across state lines, and I might be able to get a pallet at the place down that road, that had “FREE” sign on several of them this morning, assuming they aren’t taken by the time I get home. I like burning pallets, as they are free and heat-treated for pests (legal to bring across state lines) but I’ll make sure bring a magnet to pick of the nails and staples.

On this day in 1985, a joint American–French expedition locates the wreckage of the Titanic. It turns out that the big boat wasn’t just a movie but an actual sinking of a boat. So not fake news.

As previously noted, there are 3 weeks until Autumn Begins when the sun will be setting at 6:51 pm with dusk at 7:19 pm. On that day in 2016, we had mostly sunny skies and temperatures between 82 and 53 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 70 degrees. We hit a record high of 95 back in 1895.