It’s been a whirlwind of a fall for me. There was a lot of traveling, and I’m actually looking forward to being home for a few months just to rest. I am feeling very tired mentally and physically and can use it. I feel like I haven’t been home for more than a few days since July.

Of course, the biggest news this fall was watching the mid-term elections. I could hardly breathe, wondering if the country was going to choose to head toward fascism, but we seem to have dodged that bullet for the moment, even with the House ending up in control of the Republicans. New Hampshire, where I live, elected all Democratic Representatives and our Senator while at the same time sending a Republican back to the Governor’s mansion. Our State House was gerrymandered so Republicans would control that as well, so there’s that. A good representative from my district, who attends the same church I belong to, was not re-elected. It was very disappointing as Jerry Knirk is a retired surgeon, so his voice was very important during the insanity and disinformation of the COVID pandemic. Still, I’d rather live here than Florida or Texas, even with the crazy Free Staters we have.

The weather has been mild throughout the fall and into December. It’s hard on this area right now because the ski areas are suffering. Last night it wasn’t even below 40° and they need it below freezing to even make snow at the ski areas. We had a good rainstorm yesterday as well instead of snow. I know some people don’t want to believe it, but the climate is most definitely changing. I can see it just in the 17 years we’ve been living up here.

The leaves changed at least 10 days later than I’ve previously seen too. Usually, by the last week of September, we’re seeing good color in the leaves, but they didn’t reach peak until nearly the middle of October.

My geocaching died off a bit this fall too. Between the traveling and just being physically and mentally tired, I didn’t have the urge to push myself. My town map (seen above) is more filled in than at the beginning of the year, though. My stats say I added 239 towns so far this year and I might get a trip or two in before December 31st. The lack of snow will help in that regard, but it’s still not something I like seeing. I managed to finish finding geocaches in all the towns of Rhode Island on a camping trip we took at the end of October to meet some friends and do a test run in the camper. I also signed the geocache for the DeLorme Challenge for Maine, which I completed in September. I thought I would get Vermont completed this year, but it wasn’t in the cards. I will probably try to work on Massachusetts and Connecticut over the winter, depending on what the snow does.

As I said, I’m feeling very tired physically and mentally. My daughter-in-law is visiting with my granddaughter and I took her to do some sight-seeing in our area yesterday, but since my other daughter had today off I let the two of them take the kids by themselves for the day and I just stayed home. I thought I’d write another book review, but it’s been hard to get my head there. Even this post I abandoned twice before I decided to make sure I finished it today.

I do love having the camper, though. Our first big trip was pretty much a success, although our awning broke. We had to roll it as tight as we could and then used ratchet straps to make sure we didn’t lose it going down the highway. We had planned to go to Cleveland and see the Rock & Roll Hall of Fame, but that November snowstorm where they had over 70 inches of snow in Buffalo moved in and we decided to head home rather than push the weather. Good thing we did, because even though we went south of the storm through Pennsylvania, we were fighting snow squalls that whole day. Not fun when you’re pulling a 30-foot trailer!

Christmas is around the corner and I did get most of the presents I bought wrapped which makes me feel good. That’s some pressure off me. I really only have a few things I need to do in the next two weeks. As much as I’d love to make cookies like I used to, it’s probably not going to happen. I did buy some new cookie sheets, though, so we’ll see.