I had a long wait at the airport(s) on New Year’s Eve, so to replicate that, I’ll wait to write about it and instead write about some more recent goings-on. I was in Manhattan a couple of weeks ago and went to visit the High Line. They took the old elevated freight lines along the West Side, abandoned for many years, and turned it into a park. This had been in the works for years and Phase I opened this month (go to www.thehighline.org for more). I was very glad to visit it during its opening weeks, oohing and aahing and taking pictures and enjoying the park along with everyone else. I loved it – and (cue music) I love New York.
My sister and her family were out in Southampton that weekend, and, as she is wont to do, she took a walk and collected trash (while the rest of us played Rummikub!). She said she wanted to start a blog with pictures of the trash, and I helped set it up. Check out www.sweptashore.blogspot.com. Here’s an outtake! I have been collecting the trash while I am here and she is not – so now I have a new addition to my daily routine. I had been looking for a service project to do once my departure date got postponed, and now this is it!
And as long as my departure date was postponed – I decided there was no time like the present to do that East End exploration I have been talking about since I got here. I rented a car and did the South Fork one day and the North Fork the next! Growing up in Queens, the East End always seemed so far – because it is – so now, when I am 65 miles from the beginning, it seemed a good time to go the other 35 to the end. It’s a Long Island!
To Montauk I went, past farm stands and windmills and the cute little downtowns of Water Mill and Bridgehampton, stopping in the chi-chi downtown of East Hampton for lunch. After East Hampton (well, after Amagansett) it gets very rural – I stopped at some state park overlooks but the tick warnings were enough to dissuade me from doing any hiking. Maybe next winter or spring before it is sandals weather and I am still wearing long pants that I can tuck into socks. I did go to Montauk Lighthouse (commissioned by George Washington) and looked at Block Island – it’s not that far away!
The next day I drove west to Riverhead, which had always been a name on the Long Island Expressway sign and not an actual destination. Its downtown looked like an old Midwest one as opposed to the cute/trendy ones on the Forks. To the North Fork I went – through Aquebogue, and Jamesport, and Laurel, and Mattituck, and Comet, and Cupid (no, just kidding) – to Cutchogue, where I ate at the home-cooking diner there (tourist info that I read said chicken pot pie – I have been in the mood for one, since the time I went to the Golden Pear here for one and they told me it was just a winter dish; alas, the Cutchogue Diner did not have one on this day either). I went past winery after winery, leaving tasting for another time (I think it would be more fun to go with a friend…). Long Island wines have started to get good reviews and awards, so they say (job opportunity? I did like the wine industry. But I don’t want to go back…). Onward through Peconic, Southold, and Greenport to Orient Point, another place that always seemed so far out there…in the Orient!
I saw the ferry to New London and marveled that I had just traveled to the end of Long Island Sound. I did short hikes in Orient Point County Park and Orient Point State Park (they’re on different sides of the point), checking afterwards for ticks. I stopped in Greenport on the way back – it seems to be the cutest North Fork town – and rather than going around all the way west, I took the north ferry to Shelter Island. Did another short hike in the Nature Conservancy lands there (another place to go back to, properly dressed!) and then took the south ferry to Sag Harbor and walked around its cute downtown for a while.
I know that I have said a couple of times that I wouldn’t mind living out here someday. Could this have been my someday? There are lots of things to do – the hikes and wineries, historic museums, places to eat and to shop – and maybe if I had a car here and more time here I would explore more, but now that I’ve seen what’s there, I feel very content to remain in Southampton, where I have everything I need in walking or biking distance! When I returned the car I walked through the cute downtown right here, and the next day I walked on the little nature path that’s about a mile from the house. The hydrangeas are just beginning to bloom and it’s finally beach-walking weather (trash or no trash). With my departure date postponed, I can enjoy a couple of weeks of the Southampton that the summer people come for!
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