Adventures on Long Island

June 27, 2003 (Fri.)
Home to Wading River, NY (135/135 miles)

It's been a while but we're on the road again. Not a long trip this time but it promises to be unique. Today's entry might be titled "The Adventures of a High Clearance Vehicle on a Low Clearance Road". Every morning in the traffic reports we hear about 18 wheelers wandering onto highways there they don't belong and getting hung up under low overpasses. Now we can understand why it happens. But first some housekeeping.

We got up at 5:15 this morning and took our usual 12 mile bike ride out to the Rumson/Sea Bright Bridge. After three days of hot humid weather, the cool morning air felt wonderful. There were many others out there this morning too - walkers, joggers, and bikers. When we got back, we finished packing up Q and finally got off at about 10:30.

Our aim was to miss the heavy commuter traffic around New York City. Well, if we missed it, we can't imagine what the commuter traffic would have been like. The GSP wasn't bad. Nor were the Outerbridge Crossing and the West Shore Expressway up to the Staten Island Expressway. But on the Staten Island Expressway we came to a virtual standstill - 5 MPH may as well be a standstill - until we got almost to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge.

Shortly after getting on to the Shore Belt Parkway we saw a sign directing all vehicles over 11 feet high to "Exit Immediately". Q is 10' 6'' tall so no problem - we thought. The second underpass showed a clearance of 10' 6" in the outside lane. And it looked like it had been hit many, many times. There were many clearances under 11' even in the high point but luckily all over our 10' 6" - until we saw a sigh warning of a 9' 6'' underpass. We risked several accidents and exited onto local streets. After a while we made our way back to the Beltway. There was no height warning on the ramp but the next underpass showed a clearance of 8' 6". We got off at the next exit. It would have been nice to have known before getting on the highway that it was a low clearance road. That 11' foot warning we saw was meaningless.

We learned something interesting about the Long Island traffic code as we made our way through city streets on our way to the LI Expressway (I-495). Red lights are only suggestions here. If you can make it across the intersection without hitting something or getting hit, go for it. We never saw so many people running red lights - even when it had been red for quite some time.

As New York State Park campgrounds go this is not the greatest. Although I remember seeing on their website that all the sites have electricity, they don't and we don't. Our neighbors on both sides seem to have a friendship thing going and are using our site as their pathway back and forth. They pass so close to our door that we're afraid they might trip on our mat! Lots to watch though. The young teenager next door appears to be practice driving the family car, a concern because the people across the way have many small children riding scooters, bikes and roller blades. One little kid who can't be more than three has a tiny scooter that he hasn't quite got the hang of. Funny to watch.

It never ceases to amaze us that people go camping and then drive their cars to the bathroom and showers!!

Q049559 Wildwood State Park #A16 dry $17.38 C
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June 28, 2003 (Sat.)
Wading River, NY to Quogue, NY & back (56/191 miles

Today was for Jerry and Margo - the celebration of their 50th wedding anniversary - and a great time was had by all.

But first we spent the morning here at the campsite still decompressing from yesterday's drive out here. Since we'd wandered all over the campground yesterday trying to find our assigned site, we had only the vaguest idea of which direction was "out". More importantly we needed to know how to get back to it easily in case we came in after dark tonight.

We set out on foot and had a good walk easily finding the entrance gate and then the beach on Long Island Sound. After a light lunch we showered and headed South to Quogue in the midst of the Hamptons.

Jerry and Margo's son Geoffrey and his wife have a wonderful house in a sparsely populated area that easily accommodated the 85 or so guests. It started life as a large carriage house and was beautifully converted into a home by Jerry and Margo's architect daughter Jennifer.

The celebration was a wonderful tribute to Jerry and Margo's energy, love, and generosity. Guests included family, of course, and friends going back to childhood. Among them were couples they knew from their work with Marriage Encounter whom we also know - Darwin & Grace, Roger & Marty, and John & Nancy. It was so good to see them all again. Many of the guests stood at dinner time and spoke about their relationship to the honored couple bringing both laughter and tears. Jerry ended the formalities by singing 2 love songs to his wife. He's not a singer which made the experience all the more moving for all of us.

Our drive back to the campground was at sunset and a magnificent one it was!! It was a beautiful way to end a beautiful day. We stayed off the highways, and only got lost once when we missed a turn.

Wildwood State Park #A16 dry $17.38 C
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June 29, 2003 (Sun.) Wildwood State Park (2) - We thought this would be a relaxing day around camp. Not so. First the people across the road, three families, were up having a good time until 5:00 this morning. They weren't overly loud as parties can be but they were too loud for what should be quiet time in the campground and loud enough to keep us, and probably others, awake.

After lunch, when it looked as if they would be staying another night - check out time is 11 am - we took a walk to see if we could find a new site for our selves. But when we got back it looked as if they were getting ready to leave so we decided to stay put. They did finally leave.

Just as we were beginning to relax, we got a phone call from the nursing home in Penney Farms, Florida to inform us that Mark's mother was having a very bad weekend. She'd either had another stroke or was "giving up". We decided to cut our Long Island adventure short and head for Florida. But we didn't want to try getting back across New York City on a late Sunday afternoon after the first sunny weekend in two months so we settled in for one more night. This was about when our neighbors, the ones who'd been nearly tripping over our step as they trudged back and forth, decided they'd play a little Frisbee (not so bad) with their radio playing salsa so loud that the speakers were badly distorting the sound (very bad!). We went to the registration booth and got ourselves a new site. It's a good one, up on a hill with no one nearby. And it's quiet!!

What has happened to the respect campers used to have for each other, the environment, and safety? Our experience here wasn't the first bad one, nor was it the worst but it was typical of what we are seeing more and more. Besides the noise and intrusion on our space, someone, our neighbors we think, was burning styrofoam instead of wood in their fire ring - tends to spoil the camping ambiance! The guys across the way kept a good big fire going all night by squirting lighter fluid on it - they used up two big bottles of the stuff by the time they left - and got it going "good" again this morning. They had a nice smoldering bed of coals when they were ready to leave so they dumped them out on the ground, poured water on the fire ring to cool it down so they could put it into their pickup. Then they just drove away. The coals were still smoldering with an occasional small flame when we moved our new campsite several hours later.

I guess this is the time to mention the incident of a couple of years ago when we watched a man let his dog pee on water spigot in an empty campsite near by and walk away unmoved. We now always spray water spigots with disinfectant before hooking up!!

Q049615 Wildwood State Park #C19 dry $17.38 C
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Monday, June 30, 2003 (Mon.)
Wading River, NY to Home (144/335 miles)

Nice restful sleep last night. No noise! We got up at 6:00 and went for a 2.5 mile walk, breakfasted, showered, dumped and were on the road for home by 8:30. We wanted to miss the commuter traffic going into New York City so we weren't hurrying. The Long Island Expressway (I-495) was crowded but the traffic was moving along fairly well. But getting to the Verrazano Narrows Bridge on I-278 was a nightmare. It might have been better to have tried dodging the low underpasses on the other road again. We never got up over 5 MPH anywhere in that 18 mile leg. It was more often 2 MPH if we weren't stopped altogether. We could have walked it faster. The crowded Garden State Parkway with its heavy footed maniac drivers was a welcomed respite.

We got home - averaging 28 MPH for the trip today - at about 1:30 and immediately began to prepare for our trip south. We plan to leave early Wednesday morning.

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