Good evening folks. Merry Christmas! Tomorrow is Christmas Eve. Rain and 53 degrees tonight. Rain will last a few more hours before stopping. Tomorrow is going to be a hot one, at least by December standards with Christmas Eve expected to reach the upper 60s or low 70s depending upon how much the clouds break. Christmas Day will be not as quite warm, with highs looking to reach the mid to upper 50s. Saturday afternoon the rain comes, and we will see low 50s then. More rain Sunday, then Monday into Tuesday, Albany may finally get its first snowfall of the year 1-3 inches of snow and ice. The snowfall if it happens on Tuesday will be the latest ever recorded in the history of Albany.
Went down to the library for a bit, uploaded some maps and content to the blog. I haven’t done many for a while, but soon some Google Maps will be coming to the blog. Technically, they’re KML maps but they’re interactive, full-screen maps overlaid on Google Maps. I could and may eventually switch them to Open Street Map or something from the US Government that is totally free to use. Some are census data and some are political data. Neat stuff, but sometimes static maps are better, especially for simpler maps.
I checked the truck and the battery looks good per the voltage meter. All my battery problems were fixed by just disabling the accessory battery while starting or so I think. We will see but I’m feeling fairly confident at this point.
Packing tomorrow for camping. Christmas Day looks to have fantastic weather. If not for the family dinner tomorrow, I’d leave tomorrow as both Christmas Eve after dark and Christmas Day look to be spectacular.
Christmas Day, I’m going to explore Basswood Pond State Forest and hike some of the trails there. It’s only 750 acres up on a mountain but looks nice based on what I’ve read. Probably just camp one night at Charles Baker State Forest and come back with the rain expected Saturday evening. I was going to stay the full weekend but not if Saturday is going to be a soaker. No snow up there, and the campsites are hardened with gravel, so they shouldn’t be too muddy. They also have good cellphone service up there for emergencies and entertainment at night. Lot less road noise than NY 8 in the . I’d love to do more hiking but I don’t know how to make it work with camping plans.
Christmas Day looks so nice I thought about hiking in the Adirondacks and camping along Route 8 on the East Branch, but I might do that next week for the New Years Eve celebration. Same distance almost as Charles Baker. NY 8 is a blacktop state road, maintained all winter, so I can camp there even if there is a fair amount of snow. The campsites are all pretty close to the road. Which is nice, except it does mean a lot of road noise when the big trucks come through at night. I want to get some sparklers and fountains to light off, which are supposed to be on sale this time of year. Plinking would be fun too. Originally planned to camp at the lean-to on Beebe Hill but I doubt we’ll have sufficient snow by New Years to drag my sled with gear up it. Beebe Hill has that great fire tower up top.