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So I sold Big Red.

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Handed over the title, signed the necessary paperwork, and I got 25 $100 bills. I took them to the bank, they verified them and they were deposited. They drove Big Red off the lawn, it’s gone. No longer my problem. Probably got more then I would have gotten for trade or on one of those online buyer sites, it was in the range of other offers, and I just wanted it done and not have it ruin my Columbus Day Weekend replying to emails and driving out to Westerlo to sell the old truck. Hopefully he will have a good life with new home.

Maybe I could have dickered over the price, it looks like he had the full $3,000 on him, but I was willing to take $2,500 and not risk the sale going south. Another big chunk of sheet metal came when I slammed the tailgate, and it’s not latching. Window switches have long not worked well, and the old truck has a million different issues being 15-years old at this point. He needed to go. And I got something from him, besides the decade and half of memories, some bad, but mostly good and a lot of adventures. It was fun having a lifted truck when I was young, but I like the SuperDuty now.

Next thing is to figure out which oil undercoat the SuperDuty. I wasn’t waiting for selling Big Red to do this but I’ve been busy and it’s been another expense. I have also been debating about different oil coatings – and debating with the cost of it all from $200-$600. But I think it’s important to do and I know winter is coming soon. It’s something I’ll have to decide over Columbus Day Weekend and start calling about potential appointments next week.

Tomorrow, God Willing, Heading North at this Time 🧭

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Hoping for a nice weekend up north in the Adirondacks, enjoying the remaining colors hiking Snowy Mountain and/or other peaks, some campfires, some relaxing, and hopefully not too much rain. Though I’m watching that hurricane push closer inland, it still looks like more showers on Sunday evening rather then a major rain event come Columbus Day. But regardless, I will be spending most of Italian Americans holiday working from Speculator Library.

I got the inverter last night, 🔌 but I had too much work to get it wired up and installed after work. So my plan is to work from home today, except for the meeting mid-day which I will head into the office for. Hoping to find time to wire that up and bolt it in. It’s a nice 1kW Renology Pure Sine Wave Inverter with Bluetooth. It will pare nicely with my phone and eventually a Renology MPPT and DC-DC converter when I go to lithium ion batteries eventually, probably before my Michigan trip next year.

Renewed my blog contract last night, $713 dollars for 3-years. 💵 Prices sure have gone up from the first contract 22-years ago at $165 for three years, and the host isn’t perfectly reliable, but whatever I am happy enough with it, gives me something to do, tell my story, and the truth is these days with the advertising, it’s a money making property. I made $3,300 over three years, and I expect I’ll make at least that over the next three, and things are good until October 2029. Might be a very different life then, I am not sure if my parents will be around then, or what I’ll be doing those days. 🧑‍🧒‍🧒 Still it’s kind of fun to get paid to tell my story, make maps and share photos. Maybe Facebook is free and has ads, but I have a lot more control over my blog, and how I upload ands hare content.

This morning, I am hoping to sell Big Red. 🛻 Driving out to Westerlo in about an hour, ⛽ after stopping to get some more fuel to put in the tank, I have all the required forms ready if the person shows up and offers a reasonable offer. I hope so, as at this point, I am not going to bicker over a few hundred bucks, as long as it’s reasonable. If it’s not, there was at least one other person asking about the truck, along with several others. 🤝 Then I go to drive up to Menands and get in my office, run some state label jobs and approve timesheets. ✅ Thene downtown for another meeting with QMC Printers 🖨️ to discuss list generation. Probably just take the shuttle, 🚀 I don’t feel like loading up my bike onto the truck. Then back up to Menands.

Then catch the shuttle back the office, 🚀 do a little more legislative work, then I want to get to the Menands Dispensary and get some weed for the weekend, ⛅ then Wally World to run beer cans, ♻️ get more beer 🍻 and other things to eat like eggs and cottage cheese, get wire terminals to hook up an additional snubber network surge protector to help protect the new inverter. Then come home, wire it up, ⚡ test it, load my camping 🏕️ gear and then head north early tomorrow to work remote from Speculator, bringing both laptops so I am prepared and can do whatever is needed for work. Then Saturday, hike Snowy Mountain ⛰️ super early before the crowds.

Map: Gilman Lake
Map: North-South Lake Campground and Kaaterskill Clove

According to that first post I saw this morning on New York Dairy, the solution to all the problems is COWS ! 🐮

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As the song goes, Tarkio Road is a mother, where the police inspect you and the children reject you. Which reminds me to add buying weed on my list of things of do before I head north. Trying my best to set the highway on fire, the secret places where you always keep your vibe.

Good willing if the weather is good enough next weekend, I’ll be heading out to MOO Country – Madison, Otsego, Oneida Counties, 🐮 oh, no, carry the load to do some camping out in Charles Baker and maybe even spot an outlaw or too on the backroads with a burn barrels, 🛢️ though it ain’t no Pennsylvania. Silage chopped now, and probably by next weekend leaves fading 🍂 and the land a pungent brown from the slurry spreaders. 💩 Cowboy life. We’ll at least dairy good.  Maybe I should buy whole milk, it’s more expensive, and more calories but supposedly also more filling and nutrious. I go back and forth on that debate. 🍫 That chocolate milk I drunk over at DACC yesterday was well very filling. Chocolate milk is not from brown cows or cow slurry, despite various social media posts claiming such things, though the poop makes the corn silage, hay, dry corn grow well. Recycling ♻️ which is far more realistic that all that plastic I’ve sent up in smoke over the years.

This weekend though it’s off to Speculator. 🥾 I was thinking Thursday night, but I may need that evening to set up the inverter and pack, as I am not sure if it won’t get delivered until Thursday, and while I plan to be home to sign for it, I am not sure I’ll have time to wire things up. 🔥 So I might head north very early on Friday, set up camp and work remote from Speculator Library. 👨🏻‍💻 I’ll bring my government VPN laptop so I don’t have smae problem as last Friday. Then probably Snowy Mountain on Saturday very early before dawn and the crowds, though I could change my mind.  I want to get away while I still can, and it’s not just the weather I am fearing. 🌨️ That said, I got think El Nino might make for a mild winter good for camping assuming things aren’t too icy or dry.

Map: Hewitt State Forest

Evening

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I was in the office until about 5:30 PM before riding over to the library to do more work. Autumn really feels to be in full force, soon enough, no more riding home after work. I still keep dwelling a lot on about the last year or two of my parents, what it means to me, and what to say to them and ask them about before it’s too late. Too often I have found myself in the room with people at their end of their lives, with nothing but trivialities to say, ending with the conversation with see you soon, even though that’s a false statement. There are likely more meals spent together, maybe seeing my niece in the Nutcracker and family Thanksgiving and maybe Christmas, though I know I’ll be helping more and I’m not sure how much Mom will be able to handle the pans for cooking.

Ultimately nobody can know things will end up in the future. I don’t know about their homestead, the place I grew up, I really have very mixed feelings about it all. It could end up in probate or maybe my sister will get it, or all assets depleted by medical and end of life costs. I don’t know. It’s not really what I want at the end of day. Still, while I think I can survive another winter in my rundown old apartment, pushing my mountain bike through the snow, riding to work most days to avoid the bus or driving the SuperDuty to work, I’ve known for a long time, it’s not a permanent solution, though I’ve made it work for a long time. Likewise, as much as I love the travel and wilderness, I know I can’t forever go on disappearing to the wilderness for long weekends and weeks, having my fires and drinking beer and smoking pot, wandering through the wildflowers and peering off the peaks. The SuperDuty is not Big Red, but in many ways a reimagined, better or at least different version of Big Red. Selling him has proven difficult, but maybe I’m just too unwilling to give him up for so little after so many years together.

I did sleep better yesterday, I actually find it comforting the quiet having the windows closed at night. Road noise just bothers me more and more in my creaky old apartment next to the High School and two major suburban throughfares. But I do miss the fresh air, and getting used to mold and dingy old apartment air is tough. Truth is I want that off-grid cabin, but not in New York, and not in commuting distance of my job in the city. I get tired of the endless consumerism, and Mom and Dad sure are proud of subscribing to weekly trash pickup. I swear outside of Amazon knick-knack purchases, that’s the only thing they care about these days when I visit on Sunday. I got to give them slack, it’s end of their lives. I do like my job, the work. I do good work, I am paid well, even if my office is next to sewage treatment plant and propane fueling station and the old city garbage dump. Maybe it was what I ultimately wanted, regardless. Still I am watching time fly by, even as I learn and continue to advance my career. In many ways I’m happy, even as the old falls away and new replaces it, things are different, maybe better but always someway worse.

“Trials never end, of course. Unhappiness and misfortune are bound to occur as long as people live, but there is a feeling now, that was not here before, and is not just on the surface of things, but penetrates all the way through: We’ve won it. It’s going to get better now. You can sort of tell these things.” – Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintainer

Map: Green Mountain National Forest North
Map: Green Mountain National Forest South