Dateline September 5, 2011, Long Island, Labor Day at Shinnecock
Having dodged the brunt of Irene, we drove to New Bedford, Massachusetts, where we spent the night. Much of the fishing fleet was still in port, having returned ahead of the hurricane. By the time we left on Tuesday there was not a single ship in port.
We wanted to try a restaurant by the waterfront and found one on Yelp that looked like a great seaman's bar. We arrived to find it was open only for breakfast and lunch. One of the patrons outside told us we'd be safe in the bar, which gave us the picture of the neighborhood pretty quickly. He recommended Anthony's down the street, a wonderful Portuguese restaurant where we had a great meal.
In the morning Janice tried to qualify for the USGA Mid-Amateur. The golf gods were helping others that day, so no qualification. From there we headed for New London, Connecticut, to catch the ferry to Orient Point at the eastern end of Long Island's North Fork. We caught the 4:00 PM ferry, arrived at Orient Point about 5:45, and drove to an RV park in Greenport. Little did we know it may have been the only park to have power on the north shore of the Island (the local way of referring to Long Island). We got a good night's sleep and the next morning headed for Locust Valley to see John's sister Carol, whose power had just been restored. We stopped at a vegetable stand on the way and picked up some fruit and vegetables for the weekend.
Carol and Parker's son Clay was flying in with his lovely wife Talia (the wedding in Hawaii at the start of the trip), arriving at 3:00 PM. So we went out to the airport with Carol and took the airport bus into Manhattan to meet our daughter Kieran and son James for dinner. We met them at Grand Central and took the subway over to Kieran's fifth-floor (huff, huff, huff) walk-up apartment on 57th and 10th.
This gave us a chance to see Rocky, Kieran's wonderful dog. We then went down to the Lower East Side for dinner at Panna II. This inexpensive BYOB Indian restaurant is a hoot. The food was fantastic and the decor just insane. We've never seen so many chili-pepper Christmas lights in one place. Kieran told the waiter that it was Janice's birthday (it wasn't). All the lights went out and the waiters and the rest of the patrons sang "Happy Birthday," with a lighted disco ball overhead as the only source of light.
We took a taxi back to Penn Station for the train out to Locust Valley. It was funny for John, having spent so many years catching that same train from Penn Station out to Long Island.
Thursday we ran errands and bought food for the weekend out at Shinnecock. During the afternoon we helped Ginny, Carol's good friend who had been driving Carol into the city for her daily treatments at Memorial Sloan Kettering, get dinner ready for the fourteen people coming to the house. Ginny's husband Lou put a pork loin on the grill that was a sensation.
James's fiancée Mary arrived late Thursday night and they stayed at a relative's house in Locust Valley. We picked them up in the morning and drove out to Hampton Bays, where Carol and Parker have a second home, currently being remodeled. The plan was for us to spend the nights in the driveway and the kids to camp in the house. Kieran and her roommate Anna would take the train down to Southampton around 5:00 PM.
Clay and Talia, along with Carol's other son Billy, arrived at the Hampton Bays house just after we did to pick up the house trailer that Carol and Parker keep for the beach. With everything hitched to the truck, we followed Clay to the beach about 15 miles away. As the bird flies, it could not be a mile.
Arriving at the beach, Dawn, the guard on duty, had us park the Roadtrek in the employee parking area and gave us a pass for the three days. Guaranteed parking regardless of how late we rolled in. Being Labor Day weekend, you can imagine how crowded the beach got with day campers. We all piled into the pickup for the trip out across the sand with the trailer. They drop the tire pressure on the pickup and trailer to about 18 psi to get through.
The day was beautiful. We enjoyed the sun while the younger group set the trailer up. All the toys, from diving equipment to surfboards to kayaks to bikes, came out of the trailer. Carol, Parker, Ginny, and Lou arrived shortly after, and the weekend was off to a great start. James, Billy, Clay, and Talia headed for the surf with Toby, Carol's eleven-year-old golden retriever, and we joined them. The surf was great and the boards got their use.
Kieran and Anna went over with Parker to the other side of the bay to pick up the Hobie sailboat. What a trip they had, around through the canal and out to the ocean. They came back through the canal at sunset.
Oh my. Others went out with Parker to sail after that. This is a picture of Mary, with Parker behind, sailing past us in the bay.
A little history. Carol and Parker have been going to Shinnecock Inlet for 35 years. They started camping in tents on the dunes, moved up to a pop-up, and finally to the trailer. Clay and Billy grew up summering at that beach, alongside many of the same families who still come back every year. John's children, Kieran and James, remember plenty of weekend trips out here with Aunt Carol and Uncle Parker as they were growing up.
Now for the rest of the pictures from the beach.
