Wednesday October 4th 2023

Yesterday’s smoke induced haze was gone today. The sky was back to deep blues with white fluffy clouds. There was still a strong wind out of the northeast keeping the almost ninth degree temperature in the comfortable range. Late in the afternoon a rude weather surprise occurred. A cloud burst overhead dropped a lot of rain over a five minute time frame. It soaked the ground and filled the puddles making my second walk of the day a bust.

My attempts to hike the trails this morning were once again impacted by the standing water. The wind pushing the water inland from the lake and river has made it impossible to walk some of the trails that were passable earlier in the week. I wouldn’t be surprised to see that river level an inch or two higher than it was over the weekend, but the gauge is in an area of the river that the rain prevented me from walking by.

Today was laundry day. Each restroom building has a washer and dryer at this state park. The low mid week occupancy makes it easy to find a set available. These machines are even thrifty in their thirst for quarters. It is an only a $1.50 per load. If they were only thrifty with their use of time. It takes about 40 minutes per wash cycle and 50 minutes per drying cycle. Overall the laundry consumed a good chunk of my afternoon. It needed to be done. I don’t know what is available at my next stop. Last time I was there the laundry was still closed because of COVID.

Tomorrow is my last full day here. I move further south on Friday.