|
|
|
Froggy into the Adirondacks
Friday, August 11 2017
This morning, after being up hours working on various things, I made a run to the dump. There had been a bunch of trash in the garage that had been festering so long that it had begun to stink in a summer-urban kind of way. I don't often make solo runs to the dump, and even less so in the Prius, and even less so without the dogs. But that's the way I did it. The fee for unloading the non-recyclables was a little less than $4.
The remote workplace seemed quiet at around 6:00pm, so I loaded up the Prius with all the things I would need for my summer Adirondack adventure, truncated though it would be. Gretchen had expressed concern that she was missing out on Janet's kittenhood, so I would be bringing her whether she wanted to come or not. Nobody would be taking care of our cats during my absence, so I filled all the food bowls and hoped the coyotes stayed away. Because it involved a kitten and leaving the critters behind to fend for themselves, my departure took longer than the impulsive ones I prefer. But I was on the road by about 6:30pm.
Initially Janet was not happy about being in a moving vehicle. She was in the backseat repeatedly lodging complaints. But eventually she climbed into my lap and nestled in. After that, she was mostly silent for the rest of the ride.
Somewhere near Malta, I needed gas, so I pulled off I-87 and went to a Stewarts. I also wanted some light and easy road beer (for drinking & driving) and, oddly, the best option was a four pack of 16 oz Becks. Becks used to be a German beer (and it was considered a good beer back before the microbrew revolution). Now, though, I see that it is produced in St. Louis, Missouri. The writing on the can tries to simultaneously trade on both its German authenticity and made-in-Americanism.
[REDACTED]
The drive to Twenty Ninth Pond is a long one; it's more than 60 miles north of Albany. I was listening mostly to a Froggy FM affiliate playing mostly contemporary country music. In this somewhat-reactionary genre, there tend to be many more male than female voices, the themes tend to be comically rural, and accents unabashedly southern. But, as for the musical arrangements themselves, they would be hard to characterize without such cues. There are little bursts of fiddles now and then, but the electronic dance and even hip-hop influences of modern pop are usually there as well.
Some asshole with a pair of those bright bluish headlights was on my tail as I neared the turnoff to Twenty Ninth Pond (which is marked by a big granite boulder). So I missed it and ended up going a mile or two too far north up Route 28N. But I eventually figured it out and made a U-turn, using my GPS to look for correctly-shaped lakes in the wider view on Google Maps.
The road to Twenty Ninth Pond is a rough one, particularly at the entrance, and Priuses (Prii?) have very low clearance. Indeed, I've had to hack off parts of the plastic underbelly when they've started dragging on the ground. But with careful driving, I was able to drive the Prius to the high point on the driveway (at a place we go to for reliable cellphone reception) and then call Gretchen on the house's landline so she could pick me up. (I didn't want to run through the darkness with a bag full of provisions and a squirming kitten.) Gretchen arrived with the dogs, of course, and we returned to the cabin the Subaru. I was delighted to see that the Subaru's check engine light hadn't come on all the driving Gretchen had done to get here (over 150 miles), indicating my doctoring of the oxygen sensor signal was in the butter zone.
It wasn't that late, but both Gretchen and I are still (to some extent) on East Africa time, so we went immediately to bed (along with all the critters).
For linking purposes this article's URL is:
http://asecular.com/blog.php?170811 feedback
previous | next |
