Thursday, August 11, 2022- to Home

     We had to go home today, but we didn't really want the adventure to end, and Julie never wants to take the same route home anyway.. so we made arrangements to take the car ferry from Port Jefferson, Long Island, to Bridgeport, Connecticut.  That route meant that we wouldn't have to see the NY City traffic or even the Long Island Expressway again this trip.  We left our hotel at 5:00 and were at the ferry docks, boarderd and on our eay by 6:00.  It was quite an experience, with even a semi-truck tucked into the hold of the ferry.  Unfortunately, the way our car was parked in the hold, Julie's dad was not able to open his door enough to get out so he was stuck in the car for the duration of the trip.  Those of us who were able to leave the car stuck close to it, but we were able to watch out a nearby window to see things go by.  The trip started by turning the boat around.  We were on the port side of the boat as we crossed the Long Island Sound, and the sun was coming up behind us.  We saw the other side of some of the houses that we probably saw yesterday.  We also saw the Old Field Point Lighthouse that we saw yesterday too, though we could now see its light blinking red and green.  It took about an hour to cross the Sound, and even though Abby was excited at the start of the trip, she was asleep by the time we reached Connecticut.  The ferry didn't really save us time, and may in fact have added a little, but it was a novel way to go and better than fighting the traffic.  We agreed that if we did come back to Long Island again, we'd come this way too.

     Once we were on land again we were in Connecticut, a new state for Abby.  We also passed thoughb a corner of Massachusetts, making a second state for her.  We took our time getting home, making as many stops as we needed.  Scott is typing this entry from the wayback, but we expect to get home by about 5:00 or so.

      There were certainly some disappointments on this trip.  Scott had worked to bring the printer/scanner along on this trip in order to scan some family photos that Julie's dad's late sister, Sharon, had, but we never connected with her widower, Frank, so the large machine sat next to Scott in the way-back seat for the whole trip and was never used.  That was really the biggest reason that Scott had come at all.  We were really close to Scott's aunt in Patchogue, but we didn't know what the schedule was so we never tried to connect with her.  And with the exception of what we stumbled into and ad-libbed yesterday afternoon, we didn't do the sightseeing that we normally would have on a trip like this.   It's been a lot of riding, but for very little family time.  But the trip wasn't really for us.  It was for Julie's dad.  He has apparently referred to this trip as his "last trip to the Island."  Only time will tell if that is true or not, but both of Julie's parents seemed happy that we did this with them.

Wednesday, August 10, 2022- Long Island

      We all able to sleep in today after yesterday's early rise (and tomorrow's, soon to come).   After breakfast, Abby got to swim in the hotel pool again before we got to visiting.

      Our first stop for the day was another visit with Uncle Rick and Aunt Sharon in nearby Holbrook.  We went to their house this time, and spent the time visiting with them in their living room, underneath their pretty skylights.  While we were there, their daughter, Debbie, came to visit with us too, while she was on her lunch hour.

     It was after 1:00 when we left Uncle Rick's place, and we needed lunch, so we stopped at a nearby Burger King.   We still had the afternoon to kill, so we went looking for Long Island potato salad.  We don't know why Julie's dad likes it so much, but he says it's just better.  We went to the Lake Delicatessen to get some and see if it is so.   We still had a while before we had something specific to do, so we set the GPS for a lighthouse that was nearby.  It is the Old Field Point Lighthouse.  It didn't appear to be open for tours, but it was a nice place for us to get out and stretch and walk around the grounds.  From there, we looked across Long Island Sound to Connecticut, and we saw numerous cormorants and gulls on the rocks nearby.   We would have liked to have found a public beach for Abby to have a little fun at but all of the ones we could find in the vicinity were for residents of those villages only.  While we were driving around, though, we saw a lot of cute houses, some very big expensive ones, and some  that were both.  Julie and Scott agreed that the colonial-style architecture that many of them had made them think of the houses around Williamsburg, VA.   Almost all of the houses we saw were big and many were huge.  Most of the streets were narrow. winding, and tree covered, while many of the properties we passed were behind tall hedges, trees, fences and gates, but we still got many glimpses of the houses as we passed through several "villages" including Setauket, Poquott, and Belle Terre.

     We headed back to the Premier Diner in Commack, where we met Gloria and Ron.  Gloria is the first wife of Julie's late Uncle David, and Ronnie is one of their sons.  Corey is Ron's brother, and it's not hard to hear the resemblance once either of them starts talking.  We had already noticed that diners seem to be a Long Island thing as we were driving around today.  The Premier Diner is apparently one of Gloria's favorites, and she was nice enough to buy us all dinner there.  She talked Julie and her folks into starting with the matza ball soup.  The diner was quite large, but there weren't many people there this Wednesday afternoon.  We were sat along the windows at the end of what is essentially a long hall way, which gave us a pretty quiet place to talk.  It also let Abby have a place to play on the floor past our table.  One of the biggest laughs of the evening came when Gloria brought up how she was going to bring potato salad up from Long Island to Western New York and we showed her that Julie's mom already had a container of potato salad in her purse.  After talking at the diner for a long while, we went to Gloria's house and continued the conversation there until it was going on 9:00.  Gloria was finally able to get a little bit of a hug from Abby as we were leaving. 

     Meanwhile, at home, Anna was continuing her first week at her new job at ECMC, and Emma went to the Erie County Fair with her other grandpa and grandma- Scott's parents.