August 2023 Recap
Planning & Leaving
It has been a weird year. Even the annual traditions that Shannon and I rely on are out of whack. For the last three years we have taken an extended 2-3 week vacation at the end of August, and to make that happen, planning starts in the early Spring. This year, with so much going on, we were indecisive about where we wanted to go and ended up booking a last-minute, at least by our standards, multi-week trip in New England.Â
New England… or more precisely Maine, New Hampshire, Vermont and upstate New York was where we traveled in 2021 and were met with rain on 18 of the 22 days we were out there. So in a lot of ways, this was a re-do trip filled with a number of itinerary items that did not work out for us two years ago.
September’s entry will go into more detail on what we saw and did.
This latest vacation marks our 5th consecutive year of going on a multi-week road trip together. Each trip we get a bit smarter and more efficient with how we select and pack our gear. One thing we wanted to improve upon was how we leveraged our back trunk storage.Â
A bit of woodworking trial and error later and we had built a functional two drawer system that allowed for a substantial amount of storage for camping gear and was sturdy enough that we could pile all of our more bulky items on top of it.
TBD on how it fares long-term, but we had fun figuring out the build together and leaning upon our own strengths. Shannon with 3D design work and spatial comprehension. Myself with the saw and drill contributions.Â
One of the oddities from our yearly Aug/Sept trip is that we leave in the waning days of the Wisconsin summer and return in the midst of the Wisconsin fall. So we spend August doing our last summer hurrahs. The above picture is from one of our last fires with friends while it is still warm enough to wear t-shirts. These nights, with the flames crackling, the crickets chirping and the conversation flowing, are always special.
More hot, more dry, more weird summer weather. Almost all the rain came in a single, all-day downpour. Otherwise, we continued to have day after day of nothing but sun. My poor grass is fried. And the vegetation we are watering isn’t fairing much better.
|
|
High
|
Low
|
Average
|
|---|---|---|---|
|
Temperature
|
100.0 °F
|
55.0 °F
|
72.6 °F
|
|
Dew Point
|
80.0 °F
|
43.0 °F
|
61.3 °F
|
|
Precipitation
|
2.09 in
|
-
|
2.60 in (sum)
|
|
Gust Wind
|
55 mph
|
-
|
3.9 mph
|
My full media diet log can be found here. My favorite book I read in August was The Bell Jar by Sylvia Plath. My favorite film I watched in August was Oppenheimer (on 70mm!).
👋