Good morning! Where did September go? Winters coming. But first autumn. Two weeks to Columbus Day 🛥️. Partly cloudy and 47 degrees in Delmar, NY. ⛅ Calm wind.

I had a nice breakfast of eggs this morning, so hopefully I’ll have lots of energy to make it through today. ☕ I set my alarm early so I would be up in plenty of time to drop off my truck and be in early to prepare for the Monday meeting.⏰ Hopefully this week will go smoothly, and vacation will happen on Saturday morning bright and early. Rainy though by mid-week but maybe the rain will get out of the system by next week.🌧

Big Red has been dropped off at the shop and he’s being looked at. 🚘 Hopefully today or tomorrow it will be fixed and I’ll be good for vacation. 🔧 New mechanic but the online reviews were good and the receptionist was friendly. Maybe not the tobacco smoke, WGNA country music playing 🎶 with a burn barrel 🔥 out back but I don’t live in the country anymore. 🐮 I do miss having my cars repaired at Lou’s in Greenville, but he must be a million years old now. Great guy though. But certainly driving through Pennsylvania, Maryland, and West Virginia I’ll have plenty of time to see the country in coming week.

I’ll probably buy food for vacation 🍲 on Wednesday so I can test out the truck and have more time to figure out what I forgot before I leave. I want to leave by dawn on Saturday. Should be a nice trip down there. Friday I will also go to the laundromat and get some books to read at the library. I also want to buy two additional SD cards 🎴 so I have plenty of recording capacity for my dash cam to make scenic videos.

Today will be mostly sunny 🌞, with a high of 67 degrees at 3pm. One degree above normal, which is similar to a typical day around September 29th. Maximum dew point of 47 at 6pm. Light and variable wind becoming south around 6 mph in the morning. A year ago, we had mostly sunny skies. The high last year was 66 degrees. The record high of 88 was set in 1905.

The sun will set at 6:39 pm with dusk around 7:07 pm, which is one minute and 46 seconds earlier than yesterday. 🌇 At sunset, look for rain showers 🌧 and temperatures around 66 degrees. The dew point will be 47 degrees. There will be a south-southeast breeze at 7 mph. Today will have 11 hours and 48 minutes of daytime, an increase of 2 minutes and 52 seconds over yesterday.

Tonight will have a chance of showers, mainly between midnight and 2am. Mostly cloudy 🌧, with a low of 55 degrees at 6am. 10 degrees above normal, which is similar to a typical night around September 8th. Maximum dew point of 52 at 5am. South wind 6 to 9 mph. Chance of precipitation is 30%. New precipitation amounts of less than a tenth of an inch possible. In 2018, we had cloudy skies in the evening, which became mostly clear by the early hours of the morning. It got down to 52 degrees. The record low of 28 occurred back in 1993.

A picture perfect weekend to start out my vacation on tap. 😎 Saturday, sunny, with a high near 59. Sunday, mostly sunny, with a high near 62. Maximum dew point of 45 at 5pm. Typical average high for the weekend is 64 degrees. Temperatures are dropping rapidly now that we are into October.

I plan to get a really early start on Saturday and probably get scrapple in Pennsylvania just to try it out. 🐽 Then visit a few state parks on the northern tier before overnighting near Towanda. I’ll probably take Interstate 88 down to Pennsylvania, even though I hate driving it as I want as much time as possible to visit state parks in Pennsylvania on Saturday.

The latest forecast for Thomas WV is talking about more rain ☔ for Monday and Tuesday but that could change again. I’m going to bring my tent, tarps and heater in case it’s really cold and wet. ⛺ I don’t mind a few quiet days but I hope at least the balance of week is sunny. Cloudy days as was common during my vacation in 2017 and 2018 are kind of depressing. ☁ Sometimes though if you get the exposure right cloudy days can be excellent for fall foliage pictures. Might also be a good day for some camp cooking and baking, now that my camp stove is working really well.

I am glad that this week is a pay week, 🤑 because between the car insurance, the repair bill for my truck, rent, and certain expenses related to vacation, there is a lot of money going out and not a lot coming in. My day-to-day fund balance as of the weekend is the lowest it’s been in recent years, although I do keep a bit more in their in years past as a cushion. That said, based on the fact that it’s another month before my credit card bill is due, I think things will balance out, especially as expenses except for heat decline in the winter months.

As previously noted, there are 2 weeks until Columbus Day 🛥️ when the sun will be setting at 6:15 pm with dusk at 6:43 pm. On that day in 2018, we had mostly sunny and temperatures between 59 and 40 degrees. Typically, the high temperature is 61 degrees. We hit a record high of 81 back in 1920.