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| Shelter Island Sunset, Summer 2016 |
I'm backtracking here but on September 1--about a
week after we arrived in New Jersey--we traveled from Elia’s place in
Point Pleasant Beach to Sag Harbor, almost at the end of Long Island, to
visit with Merle and Garry, other old friends from Syracuse Law School. With
hurricane Hermine's rain and wind moving up the coast, what should have been a
three hour trip turned into over five hours of traffic and flooded roads. Brad
was intrepid as always ...
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| Google's detour around traffic jams sent us down a narrow, flooded Ocean Parkway; would have been a fantastic view if we could have seen more than 8 feet in front of us... |
There are so many highways in metro New York/New Jersey!
Most of them parkways, like the Garden State, the Belt, the Southern State (but
with a few Turnpikes and others thrown in as well). Like Brad said, "You
drive on the parkway and park in the driveway."
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| Verrazano bridge on our trip to Sag Harbor: People complain in Seattle about the new tolls on our 520 bridge but the toll here was $16! |
Like Elia, Merle and Garry were wonderful hosts and a Merle
is a fantastic cook. Garry is also a very generous pourer of wine and, even
better, also the designated driver and general looker-after of those who might have
had a little too much!
We spent a very comfortable six days with these old friends, laughing and eating
and drinking and seeing the sights by car (given my knee).
Our friends Bill and
Gabriel came out for the Labor Day weekend and we spend a fun day by the pool.
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| Merle and Bill by the pool (Brad and Gabriel lounging) |
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| Brad and Bill with Merle's cooking and, yes, summer in a bottle ... |
On
our other days, we went out to get me a knee brace at the local medical
equipment store (saw the ghost of Christmas future there...).
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| Waiting for my knee brace ... |
Went to the movies, Francis Foster Jenkins, with Meryl
Streep and Hugh Grant, about a really out-of-touch but endearing old dame in the 1940s and War Games, with Jonah Hill, about the
arms industry and people with no moral compass whatsoever (entertaining but in the end distressing!). We drove around to
see the sights, including a ferry ride to Shelter Island for a dazzling sunset
at the Sunset Cafe (even the waiters were taking photos—they said it was the
best of the whole summer with most of them headed home for the season the following day).
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| More Shelter Island Sunset |
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| Hermine surf on a Hamptons beach (with Garry, Brad, and Merle) |
My mother grew up on Long Island--Islip to be precise. In the old days, eastern Long Island was all potato farms. Vineyards now, I suppose. We used to drive out to Stony Brook for reasons unknown to a child. I guess they thought it was pretty, but I would have been happier on the beach. We spent many summers at Robert Moses Park on Fire Island. There used to be a restaurant in Bay Shore named Hamburger Junction and they delivered your lunch plate on a train. At least, that's what I remember, but I may be embellishing.
ReplyDeleteIt is such a beautiful place. So much atmosphere and sense of history (although maybe not quite as much as Rome)--all those people and their children through the years on vacation there! Like yourself and your memories (always valid). Nice to hear from you and hope the Indian Summer in the NW is lovely as always. We miss it.
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