The videos have launched, so I guess I’d better get a post posted. Like I did last year, we scooted up to the Croghan Conservation Easement land to boondock in solitude. Because the Fourth of July was actually on Tuesday, there were loggers logging on Monday. And it was quite interesting to meet the logging trucks on the road near our campsite. I guess one of the things they warn you about is that it is an active logging site, and you must be prepared to yield to the trucks. And yield you must because these trucks take up the entire road, and then some. I also note that the logging trucks did a fair amount of damage to the roads. Though they are there roads after all, and we have had more rain than Noah after the ark. I wish I had known where they were logging, or had heard them out in the woods. It would have been great to put the

drone up above them as they’re cutting down trees and dragging them out of the woods. It just seems like it would be slightly better than Google Earth. And while the road into where we camped was pretty torn up from the logging trucks, the other 6 miles of road was in pretty good shape. I don’t know if they’ll fix the road if the rain ever stops or not. I doubt their equipment cares.

We pulled into our little favorite camping spot and tried to contact the trailer a little to the left so that it had better sun coverage. I’m not really sure why I care because I really use very little electricity. I am learning that when it’s really hot running the fantastic fan is a waste of time except when you first open the trailer. And when it’s really cool running the heater only lasts about 15 minutes. So there is no real reason to use the two biggest energy eaters that I might use in the trailer. I haven’t been able to see any drop in the battery voltage from charging laptop or camera batteries. Also since we tend to hop in the car and traveled do some other hiking area, we charge most of our batteries in the car while driving. Truthfully there seems to be less loss and a more aggressive charge from the car. Of course if I’m working the laptop I do use the 12 V power supply in the trailer. Which again only takes about 1 1/2 A.

I think I’ve also determined from all the boondocking we’ve done with the solar panels, that it doesn’t matter if we get full sun or cloudy days. It still adds enough power into the trailer battery to bring it up to the “sweet spot” of battery charging. Because when the battery is up near fully charged it resists the charge from the solar panels. So I have never actually seen a full charge on the batteries from the solar panels. I’ve seen them come up to 12.8 at dusk, but an hour later they are down to 12.6 where I think they really were except for a surface charge. Now as my regular subscribers and followers are aware I have a cheap little voltage indicator on my battery box that tells me the charge level of my battery. It cost all of about $4 so I do not believe it is highly accurate. I bought it on Amazon, cut a hole in the battery box top to fit it, stuffed it into the hole and attach the wires to the positive and negative poles of the battery. Not a real complicated job but it’s nice to be able to see where the battery is most of the time. Especially in the winter when I leave for work I walk by it and can see that it may need to be plugged in or not. One of the downsides of the little voltage indicator is that I believe it uses electricity at a rate that runs the battery down in just 3 to 4 weeks to around 12.1 volts.

One of the reasons we keep going up to Croghan is that it is right on the edge of the Pepperbox Wilderness of the Adirondacks. This is an extremely under used area of the Adirondacks. As is much of the Western Adirondacks. There are numerous good size lakes and ponds that I think would be fun to visit. And if you really need to know since I don’t own a canoe or kayak, I’m always looking for fun places to skinny dip. I am a wholly romantic skinny dipper. From our campsite we are less than a quarter-mile to the Soft Maple Reservoir, about three quarters of a mile to Long Pond, and of course Sand Pond is about a quarter mile down a handicap trail which has a nice big flat rock to sunbathe on and skinny dip off of. But I will be returning to the Croghan conservation easement area for many more camping trips. We may have to consider some of the other off the main road campsites because they also look quite inviting. Though none of them have that beautiful little stream that was next to ours. One of the things we saw while flying the drone at the handicap access point was a BMW touring bike that looked like it was decked out for camping go by us. I could not figure out where he actually went and it did not look like he went down near our campsite. But it would be interesting to meet somebody else in that area that was an adventure camper like we are.

Another thing I thought was interesting for the weekend was that just north of us they were searching for a lost person, I assume a hiker, using dogs and drones. I was half motivated to go up with my boys and drones and see if we could help. Caesar is an excellent tracker, though he hasn’t tracked in 4 years. I doubt that he is forgotten much. But this person was lost in the Jadwin Memorial Forest, and the Jerden Falls area where we go camping frequently to bear hunt. So I know that area fairly well and there are some pretty steep rocky areas that I wonder if they are searching for him near. I will have to check when I get back to the office.

So not much more to really say about the camping trip except I was amazed that we had good weather except for the one night. And of course when it rains it night and the sun comes blazing in the morning, it really has no effect a tall on the day’s activities are fun. So we had a great time and are looking forward to many more. I think our next trip will be to the horseshoe Lake free campsites and hopefully we can get the prime campsite right next to the lake. Stay tuned and look for those pictures. And feel free to subscribe and comment here! It’s always nice to know somebody’s reading these.

Rick, Caesar, Dakota
GoingNoWhereFast