Long Island, Here We Come

What I knew about Long Island before spending ten days there last month could have been recited in under 20 seconds, and learned mostly through sports or pop culture. It’s history never gripped me in the way a destination I was about to travel to did like Istanbul or Bali. So when my sister in law announced we were traveling to Long Island, I was underwhelmed. We weren’t going to the Hamptons, and not really close to the city, but instead smack dab in the middle of Long Island in Centereach. It’s right where it sounds like. Two hours out to Montauk and more or less the same into Times Square. Far from everything, close to nothing. Make the best of the time with family.

My general unfamiliarity with anything Long Island is explained by incuriosity and oversight.
It’s an island. Suburbia New York City. How exciting can it be?

A few weeks before we left, my brother advised me to consider the trip not so much as a visit to New York but to embrace a week on Long Island. This mindset was truly key in letting me embrace my day trip planning as we ventured around to small hamlets, some of note, others mostly inconsequential and then punctuated our stay with two trips into the city for keystone events.

With that in mind the first thing we had to was figure out how to get to Long Island. And again, not like, near the city Long Island but way out. Conveniently far out. Far enough out that someone decided: it’s a real bitch to get to JFK or La Guardia from here. Let’s not close down this airport that’s been operating since the 1940s and Southwest went as far as to say: let’s fly to 5 destinations directly from Central Islip.

And that my friends is how my family ended up boarding at 5:40 flight from Minneapolis to Baltimore. Baltimore being one of the 5 destinations that SW flies into Central Islip.

In a more civilized world, we would have a train to board at like 4am that takes us there, but since we live in a medium hellscape, my brother — not known as an early riser — volunteered to get us there. We left our house at 4 and picked him up. He ferried us to the drop off and we whisked through security in under 20 minutes. It was painless, aside from being painful to wake that early and require functioning brain cells well before the sun arose.

Eliot has flown a few times. At three months old, we took him to Abu Dhabi but because of regional squabbles, there were no direct 45 minute flights from Qatar, so we did a layover on Christmas day in Oman. Then at 8 months, Leen, and I packed him up along with all of our possessions in the middle of the pandemic and flew 14 hours direct to Chicago. It was just about the last day that Eliot never moved because as soon as we landed stateside, he learned of crawling and we’ve been on the go ever since. I could not imagine doing that flight with an infant who just learned about ambulation or transportation. We were miserable enough with 14 hours of masks and no food.

Roman however has never flown. He went through bouts of enthusiasm and panic in the days leading up to the flight. And then the flight came… and he was fine. It was a bit bumpy but I think if it’s your first flight maybe you just think all flights are a bit bumpy. I am happy he had some turbulence so as to teach him that while flying is faster there is a trade off like feeling like you might hurl for 25% of the flight.

A painless layover in Baltimore meant we arrived in Long Island as scheduled around 2pm. It had been a long day already but this is when the move to fly into Long Island really paid dividends. We were now only 13 minutes from the AirBNB instead of 2 hours away if we’d flown direct into JFK. I long decided if the boys were going to be stuck somewhere, I’d rather it be in an airport on a layover than in traffic on a New York highway. We blew up our inflatable booster seats, called and Uber, tossed all the luggage in to the van and made the short drive to Centerreach.
This was an A- travel day all things considered. We had some potential spots of rain, but that all held off until we unloaded our luggage, ordered a pizza and unpacked at the rental. Sure the morning flight was shitty, but morning flights are delayed a lot less than night ones, so it was an okay trade off and the boys handled flight like the Wright brothers.

And now we were in New York. What adventures await?

I would block them into two categories. “Around Long Island” and “Into the City.”

Long Island is about 120 miles long and 23 miles wide with a history that predates Colonial America by centuries. The indigenous population ‘s extensive history in the region explains a lot of the naming conventions, plus the appearance of the Dutch in the West and the English on the East ends of the island. All of that is to say, driving around LI you’ll see a lot of names on signs that are hard to pronounce but you give it a try and make it work.
Some of the cities that we visited included Sag Harbor, Oyster Bay, Port Jefferson, Ronkonkoma, Central Islip, and Cold Spring Harbor.

Of the most surprising adventures was a day trip to Robert Moses State Park. Located on western tip of Fire Island on the shores of the Atlantic, this park hosts 3.8 million guests annually. We went on a relatively quiet Friday morning and enjoyed splendid weather, ripping surf, and pretty decent ice cream. Created in 1908 in honor of master builder (and controversial figure), the park has huge ‘fields’ where the public can frolic. We went to Field 5, which I’d recommend to anyone who’s looking for a beach day within a day trip of NYC. Are there beaches closer? Undoubtedly. But this one has great merch. Would recommend, but not on weekends. And get there early because the causeway is a parking lot.

Sag Harbor was also a nice little treat for the gang. We knew we didn’t have it in us to make it all the way out to either of the forks, so we settled for this historical whaling town on the southern half of the island about 80% of the way out. With about 4 blocks of quaint downtown, we lunched at a bougie spot with a great crowd and then finished by wandering around, eating frozen yogurt, and the boys swimming in the ocean even though the signs said you weren’t supposed to do that. Anyway, the town has a literary quality to it, and maybe that’s because Steinbeck is buried there and Colson Whitehead wrote a semi-autobiographical novel about the town and it’s essence as the hub of the “Black Hamptons.” I liked it. Would recommend — especially the pork.

Another town I dug was called Cold Spring Harbor. This is a good name for a town. 10/10 naming rights on that one. Most of the time I was driving around I kept thinking: this sounds really familiar but I can’t place why. We went to a fishery and had a meal there. Roman had a pancake the size of his face and Leen and I enjoyed a nice corn soup. Corn is an underrated soup star. In researching it after the fact, CSH is famous because that’s where Watson and Crick worked out of. Now, they didn’t do the DNA thing in Cold Springs Harbor but they did launch the Human Genome Project from there and 8 Nobel Laureates have worked at that lab. So Sag Harbor was Whaling + Literature and Cold Spring Harbor is Whaling + Scientific. Would recommend.

I drove the family to Port Jefferson one day because it had a famed Rocket Ship Park. You’d be forgiven for thinking that maybe the town had something to do with rockets, or someone from the Apollo program was from there, but no, doesn’t seem like it. Just maybe a park that went up around the same time as the moon landing. Reedsburg had a big rocket ship in downtown during my childhood and like the Counting Crows said, they tore it down to put up a parking lot. Not a parking lot but just a less cool park (but now a splash pad) and the only difference is that in Port Jeff, they tore down the old rocket ship and put up a new one. We had lobster rolls there. Would recommend. Lobster rolls are always a good idea.

In addition to touring the island for seafood, whaling and things to do, we took exactly two trips into the city. Why only two? Well we were about 110 minutes outside the city via train and you couldnt pay me a Kia Carnival in New York City for 8 hours and in fact, I would have to pay someone else. So I said: let’s get into the city once or twice and come back with the boys when New York is the point and not the garnish.

Our first foray into town was a breeze. We took the train, then the subway, then found a park, then hopped on a boat to take a gander at the Statue of Liberty. It was a gorgeous day. We got to see some beautiful architecture and our tour guide was a hoot. She heard there was a family on the boat from India and then promptly followed that up with: are there any Pakistani’s on board? Then she told us that she’d lost four ex boyfriends to 9/11 and its aftermath. She warned us of bad weather on Monday and spoke a little Arabic. Honestly, one of the more memorable interactions I had with anyone the entire trip. After the boat, we ate some ice cream, and then headed back home before the end of day traffic got to be too heavy. It went well enough that we decided to try it again!

Round 2 was a little more “let’s see how this goes.”
We arrived early enough for me to say, I want to stand in line for a bagel. I’m not sure if this bagel is going to be rainbow but the boys might like that but give me a shmear and let’s call it a day. We waited at Apollo Bagels for about 20 minutes and then we all devoured one. It was great. Was it worth the wait? I mean, probably not. There were like 3 places within a stones throw that had bagels also, probably woulda been fine but we had time to kill. Then we walked to New York City’s oldest magic Shop. Tannen’s Magic is tucked up on the 6th floor of a skyscraper with little to no pageantry. Famed for being “America’s oldest magic shop,” I read about it The Amazing Adventures of Kavalier and Clay. Do my kids like magic? NO. They’d never seen a trick in their life but I thought: what better place to learn about it that from the experts. We walked in and the clerk put on a 25 minute show that mostly left the boys stunned and speechless. It was very cool. Even if he botched two of the tricks (including pulling a quarter from Roman’s ear). We bought a few tricks and still haven’t gone to the well of ‘let’s try these out’ but maybe some day soon. A worthwhile stop and something I suspect most people don’t think of doing on their first trip to the city.

After magic, we walked to the Museum of Math. We contemplated an art museum but come on. Roman? Art. Let’s not torture ourselves. The math museum is part of new wave of museums which are more interactive spaces for kids to do shit and parents to feel like they’re educating them, while on vacation. We’ve been to Slime Museums and Ice Cream Museums. Subway Takes guy did the pizza museum and now that I see how well these other ones are doing I am curious how that failed. Math museum was staffed exclusively by nerdy high school kids who wanted to explain math to me. It was very interactive and very hands on and Leen and I definitely tapped out before the boys did. I was hungry and she was tired and I couldn’t listen to the 17 -year- old tell Roman what a Composite number was for any longer. Through a series of targeted instagram reels, we ended up at a very nice park on a very humid day where the boys played inside of a large fish-shaped play structure. Both experienced the joy of using a public toilet in New York City and then we went home. It was a long day. We saw a lot. The rest of the trip rained so our tour guide was right.

My last night of vacation, I walked to a nearby restaurant and ordered a Long Island Ice Tea. It was like coming home. What a cocktail.
The next day we had a travel day from hell. If all of the joys of getting there flipped on its head, then that was this. We sat in Baltimore for far too long and arrived in Milwaukee far too late.

My brother and dad picked us up and drove us up the coast to Oostburg Wisconsin where we spent a few days with my family. I got into a land dispute with a flatlander about Riperian Rights and it still makes me mad thinking about it. But alls well that ends well. After 13 days we finally made it home and Duchess was so so happy about it.

Next summer: TBD