Planes, Trains Ferries, And (Rented) Automobiles

Three Boats Later…


I find the geography to be weird as hell up here on the north tip of Long Island--but in a GOOD way.

For those of you that haven’t been to Montauk, it’s like you took a beach from the outer banks of North Carolina and plopped it down in the middle of Asheville, NC.

Seriously, you can drive away to the north from forty foot sand dunes and in five minutes you’re in rolling hills covered with slightly stunted versions of typical new England hardwoods that have already lost their leaves.

After watching Pat freak out while we loaded our rented SUV onto a giant auto ferry at New London about noon yesterday, we arrived at Orient Point Long Island about an hour and a half later having saved at LEAST a half day drive down through NY City and back up north.

I was planning on driving down the north fork and back up the south fork of the island, but when we stopped for lunch at Claudio's in Greenport I found the North and South Shelter Island Ferry’s that cut yet another 1-½ hours off the trip out to Montauk.

By the way, I have this innate ability to stumble over places like Claudio's by accident, and while is isn’t always a cheep experience the opportunity to visit such landmarks is well worth the extra cost (a hamburger and fries was $11.) The restaurant had been there on the dock, owned by the same family, since 1870--thereby making it the oldest single family run restaurant in the entire United States.

After lunch, Pat wasn’t exactly thrilled that I had added two additional short boat trips to our itinerary, but the Shelter Island runs were across very flat water and we got to stay in the SUV while under way instead of wandering around a passenger lounge, so she was no worse for the wear when the saga was over with.

I’m still kicking my own butt for having left my digital camera in the trunk in Brunswick because I’m running around with a stupid throw-away camera that makes the flash go off every time the lighting isn’t 1,000,000 lumens.

I just got in from wandering out to make sunrise photos from the beach in front of our B&B and all I probably got was overexposed images of sand with blurry clouds and a yellow blob for the sun.

I guess that I’m going to have to super glue my Cannon G3 to the Tripod so that I can’t forget one or the other next time--it’s all of nothing from here on out.

It looks like the weather might be giving us a break for a while today so we’re going to run around doing some shopping and the tourist thing, then we have to rise early tomorrow morning and reverse our saga’s direction in order to make a 4:30 flight out of White Planes.

Wish us luck…

A CORRECTION

I just checked the NOAA website, and the break in the clouds at sunrise was actually the "calm before the storm." There's a mini-nor'easter blowing this way from the south west, I just hope it blasts on through so we can get out of here early tomorrow morning...of course, if Delta doesn't fly, it wouldn't be a total loss to be stuck in White Plains NY for an extra night.