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diamond from an Adirondack hitchhiker
Saturday, August 29 2026
location: 940 feet west of Woodworth Lake, Fulton County, NY
When I emerged from my morning routine, I got to work straight away with installing the piece of cedar I'd manufactured yesterday in the gap between the upper deck and the north side of the spiral staircase's landing platform. I then fashioned a second cedar piece to connect the upper deck to the west side of the landing platform.
As I was doing these things, I realized I needed some six by 3/8 inch carriage bolts, which I did not seem to have anywhere in the cabin. This eventually led me to make a run into Gloversville in the Chevy Bolt while Gretchen was down at the dock with Charlotte. I took Neville with me, since he likes to ride around in a car and I figured it wouldn't get his heart racing. I grabbed a road beer, of course, and was drinking it as I sped southward on Route 309 nearing the southern boundary of Adirondack Park. But then I saw a woman on the side of road gesturing wildly for a ride, so I put my beer in a concealed part of the center console, pulled up beside her and told her she could get in the back seat (since Neville was riding shotgun). She introduced herself by saying her name and age and, in reference to an only mildly-skeptical Neville, saying something about a friend who has a pit bull. She said she was 45 years old, though it looked like she'd lived through a lot more hard years than I had. Her voice was raspy and she stunk of cigarettes that she probably couldn't afford. I was listening to WEXT 97.7 at the time, and she said something positive about the music and that she was a hippie. I said that I used to hitchhike all the time and that I always pick up hitchhikers, but that it had been years since I'd last seen one. I couldn't really follow where exactly the woman needed to go and why she was going there, but, not surprisingly, it involved some place in Johnstown and some guy in jail whose girlfriend was cheating on him. She also said that later today she'd be riding home on a motorcyle driven by her husband. As for why she herself was not driving, she said it was because of a DUI. I said I was only going to Gloversville, so she said that was fine and that I should drop her off at her friend's house. Near the end of the drive, the woman gave me a clear quartz crystal as a token of her appreciation, though she referred to it as a "diamond."
In downtown Gloversville, I found that the TrueValue hardware store there was closed, which seemed weird for a Saturday afternoon. This meant I was going to have to be driving to Johnstown after all. I went to fetch my beer from beneath its hatch in the center console and was distressed to see that it had fallen over on its side, draining away its contents. The beer had soaked into some pilates socks, covid masks, a pile of writing implements, and a little notebook, but most of it must've drained away somewhere. There had been nearly sixteen ounces in that can but the amount left in the console was less than a tablespoon. I drove to the Noble Ace Hardware store in Johnstown and found the carriage bolts I wanted, but my brain must've been elsewhere because I wrote "6" on the package when I was only buying four, and the lady at checkout charged me for all six, including the two that weren't there. I'll have to even things out next time by taking advantage of that lack of counting in a way that benefits me.
While I was in the area, I stopped at the Price Chopper, parking around on the north side of the building where there are a smattering of spaces along the wall so Neville would be in the shade. I hadn't been in this Price Chopper in awhile, and the sheer oddness of the way people looked in there reminded me of a David Lynch movie. As I put it to Gretchen later, they made the shoppers in the "Ghettoford" Hannaford look like shoppers at Adama's Fairacre Farms by comparison. I bought some grapes, lunch meat, sauerkraut, potato chips, and more road beer. But then something susperstious in my brain decided I shouldn't drink that beer on the road after all, that maybe the spilling out of the previous road beer was a message from the Universe, as was that poor rough-looking woman forced to hitchhike after getting a DUI. So I ate potato chips instead. On the way in on Woodworth Lake Road, I gathered yet more rocks to add to that wall I've been building.
It seemed that the rear center console in the Chevy Bolt must have some sort of built-in drain, so to get the stench of beer out of the car, I poured the better part of a quart of water into that same part of the console, and it all drained away in less than a minute. I took all the beer-soaked things out, washed them, and put them aside to dry.
When I returned to my spiral staircase attaching project, I had all the hardware I needed to do the necessary attachments. I was delighted to find that my measurements based around the use of a plumb bob made the staircase, once pulled in tight against the deck from both the south and the east, perfectly plumb. But that top landing platform ended up being a little higher than the top deck, and it fought me a little as I tried my best to make it perfectly flat. But at some point this afternoon, I was pleased with the result, which I showed off to Gretchen.
Late this afternoon I managed to convince Charlotte to join me on a walk down to the lake, where I immediately got on an innertube and began to drink a beer. Charlotte went off to do whatever while I heard the sound of happy kids from over near Ibrahim's dock, a sound that vanished after I heard the sound of an ATV departing. When Charlotte next returned to the dock, I tried to paddle back to her so we could go for a walk together, but she was impatient and left without me, ultimately heading back to the cabin. I didn't know where she'd gone, and walked to the outflow creek and the Boy Scout camp thinking I might run across her. On the walk back from there, I stumbled upon blooming cardinal flowers just upstream from the outflow creek's magical bifurcation.
[REDACTED]
Early this evening, I worked on the task of connecting the spiral staircase handle to a treated four by four post that will mark the transition from the stairway railing to conventional deck-style railing.
Such connections require good detail work, since the steel of the staircase cannot be in direct contact with treated wood. I had to use an angle grinder to cut off a mounting tab at the end of the railing, so that was exposed steel that needed protection, and I was also worried about water somehow entering the hollow end of the railing. The solution to all of these problems was asphalt, which I gooped on in copious quantities. I also used it (and a screw top from a water bottle given to me by the guy who'd sold me the staircase) to completely seal the rail's hollow end, which I then wrapped in LDPE plastic from a plastic bag, coated in more asphalt, and stuffed into a 1.5 inch wide hole (cut with my biggest spade bit) in the four-by-four. While I was doing that,
Gretchen was making an African-style "ground nut stew," something we both have fond memories of from when we were in Uganda back in 2017. It turned out so good, I went back for seconds. But I couldn't stay away from my spiral staircase for long, and soon after dinner, I went up to the highest deck and bolted the new post I'd been making tightly in place.
While I was working on that, Gretchen had decided it was best for her to take the dogs back to Hurley tonight. Somehow she'd forgotten to bring Neville's medication, particularly his gabapentin and his trazadone, both of which act as sedatives, and she was worried he was getting too restless. So I ended up having a boozy evening to myself.
Later after getting home with the dogs, Gretchen ignored them just long enough for Charlotte to go charging off into the ravine between our place and that of Crazy Dave, and of course Neville went with her, an act that must've gotten his wormy heart pumping. Gretchen told me that the moment she realized that this was happening, she screamed at Charlotte with a tone that made her realize she'd screwed up, and she immediately came back with Neville not far behind. But then Gretchen had to wonder if now there were bits of worm floating around in Neville's bloodstream ready to plug a narrow artery and cause a stroke.
A beautiful yellow birch near the upper part of East Bifurcation Creek. Click to enlarge.
Blooming cardinal flowers near the outflow creek bifurcation. Click to enlarge.
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