The Quality of Light

Teachers Fountain in Director Park is a fun place for the kids to play, what with the shallow pool and the spurting streams and the giant rock ball that you are not supposed to stand on but everyone does.

It's also a great place for photography. The sunlight reflects off the Fox Tower's glass facade, bathing the park in an uneven and ever-shifting soft, bright glow. Mix that with the wet sheen the fountain provides and you've got some excellent ingredients for unusual portraiture.

Day Three on Long Island

Didn't do a whole lot on this day. Tides in the morning. Rocketship Park in the afternoon. It was hot and humid and we were -- or, at least, I was -- feeling a desire to get back home.

Travel will do that to you.

The girls dug a kiddie pool with Barb. The next day, after the tide had overwhelmed it, it was still there, just a shadow of its former self. Elizabeth and a new friend played around and in it, and the new friend (her name was Cadence, because, why not?) kept calling it a "kitty pool." Cadence was Elizabeth's first playmate on L.I. and it was wonderful for her. She was desperate, at that point, for another kid to play with.

The shell game was in full swing on the beach. There were tons of shells, many of which were bigger and more spiral than Barb remembered from her childhood. Elizabeth amassed a fortune in shells.  Two days later, when it came time to head to the airport, she wanted to carry all of them home in her little backpack. Unfortunately, it made the backpack weigh fifteen pounds. We told her that she could carry the shells, but only if she was committed to it, and that there was no way Mom or Dad would carry the bag for her. The other option was that Grandpa could mail the collection to her. After some soul searching, she wisely decided to let Grandpa send them to her. I'm sure they'll get here any day now.

In case you didn't know, Elizabeth loves Leo. (He's one of her classmates from pre-school.)

This is how I felt; maybe how we all felt: hot, sticky, and tired.

Barb and Suzanne at Rocketship Park.

Day Two on Long Island

Today, Aunt Beverly got out of work early and we all (including Grandpa, of course) went to Atlantis, an aquarium that has really come into its own. We went to the same place maybe three years ago with Elizabeth, and it was kind of rinky-dink, like the newly opened Portland Aquarium. But now, Atlantis has come full flower. It has a hotel and schmancy restaurant attached to it, and it has expanded significantly. I've always liked the place, but now it's earning its exorbitant entry fee.

The weather continued its mercurial pattern. When we were getting ready for lunch, there was some debate about whether to eat indoors or out. We decided on indoors, and watched as a metric ton of water fell from the sky on those outside. But then it cleared up, and we enjoyed the outside exhibits. Then it rained again, as we left.

Suzanne in her signature look: upside-down sunglasses.

Elizabeth, at 5, has mastered the art of the sunglasses.

Atlantis has added a butterfly area (lepidoptary?) and an aviary (see below).

Princess Elizabeth looking at a butterfly in flight. (You can just see a bit of its wing, top left.)

You could pay a buck to get a little cup of birdseed, which guaranteed that you'd have one of these birds sitting in the palm of your hand. Elizabeth was disappointed that we didn't pay the piper, but luckily the birds found Daddy's ball cap top button and watchband extremely alluring. At one point, I had three birds on my hat! When we put the cap on Elizabeth, the birds were all over her.

Just to prove it was really an aquarium: shark!

That afternoon, we went to Tides for a swim. The girls were absolutely thrilled by the tiny waves and the (relatively) warm water. Plus sea shells, sea glass, crabs, sea robins, and that old standby, sand.

Day One on Long Island

Our first full day in Long Island we, of course, went to Port. We all enjoyed walking on the docks in the marina, checking out the boats both humble and extravagant. Suzanne thrilled her parents by insisting on walking solo close to the edge of the elevated dock. A six foot drop into the briny waters wouldn't have killed her, probably, but it sure kept her parents on alert. Who needs coffee?

Eventually, we made our way to the spray park where Elizabeth played (sans bathing suit), the last time we were on the Island, two years ago. Unfortunately, it wasn't functioning. We had fun anyway.

Then we went down to the beach and waded around and looked at shells and rocks.

At Port Jefferson. It was warm and humid. Ferries from Connecticut were coming and going. By the way, and apropos of nothing, that stroller pictured was a godsend on this trip.

Captain Suzanne, Admiral Elizabeth, and Chief Daddy aboard the SS Spraypark.

Above: Elizabeth in June 2013. Below: Elizabeth in May 2011.

 

Down to Long Island

This was our last-day-upstate family portrait. Mark and Mary went home unexpectedly early, and I forgot to get the picture before they took off. Curses! On the far left, you can see the path below the hill that leads to the dock, and lake.

On day eight of the trip we headed south, typically of us without directions or maps (except of the Google variety, courtesy of my phone). The phone led us to the thruway and due south. Easy enough. We stopped once near Coxsackie, for lunch. The girls were in great spirits. The weather was great.

As we got closer to the Tappan Zee Bridge, our phone told us to take a smaller highway east, rather than continue on the big highway south to the bridge. I thought it might have a better way to get to the bridge. Barb thought it would be an adventure. There wasn't much time to decide, so we trusted in the Google and went east.

Into New Jersey.

It was kind of cool at first, just seeing someplace new. At one point we went through Ho-Ho-Kus (yep, that's really the name of a town in Jersey), which thrilled Barb no end because we had with us a book set in Ho-Ho-Kus. At one point we saw the skyline of Manhattan through a blue haze, miles and miles away yet, but framed perfectly by a gap in the hills that our road went through.

That skyline gave me pause. Why am I seeing Manhattan as we head east?

"Barb," I said, "are we heading toward the George Washington Bridge?"

"I think so."

We were. And we hit it at 4:00pm. On a Saturday, but who cares? Not the city that never sleeps -- or takes a weekend. It was hellacious, delaying us by at least two hours. We made an adventure out of it, marveling at the crumbling infrastructure of the Bronx, the enormous number of motor vehicles, the huge apartment towers standing shoulder to shoulder, full of people, New Yorkers.

The girls were troupers, first-order adventurers. They were butt-sore and restless, but never cried, never complained, after eight hours in the little rental Nissan Versa. And once we got off the Cross-Bronx, the Long Island Expressway was clear and smooth, and I put the pedal to the metal.

This is our proof. It may not look so bad on the GW, but it was bad. The worst part (the 14 toll booths that funnel down to four lanes) was behind us, but here we were moving start and stop, averaging maybe ten miles per hour.

Indian Lake, Day Seven

This was the day of the hike. Barb had earlier in the week picked out a nice and easy, flat, half-mile hike to a nearby lake. But after the rainstorm, the hike turned into a flooded adventure. Naturally, I fell into the water while trying to traverse a puddle with Elizabeth in my arms. She remained dry; my shoes and socks got soaked.

Thereafter, some of the wiser hikers (viz., Elizabeth, Scott, and Barb) chose to go shoeless so they could just slop right through the puddles. I slopped right through the puddles in my shoes and socks, because why not? They couldn't get wetter, and weren't going to get drier. Elizabeth and I called this "mud-boggin'" and sang a song about it as we hiked.

On the way back from the wet, buggy, fun hike, the girls in my car decided to stop at the Indian Lake Museum. Despite Mark's concerns, we were not all butchered for BBQ meat by the owners. In fact, they were very nice and had an interesting, eclectic collection of relics of days gone by.

Travis signing the party in. If we were to get lost on the half mile hike, this log would help the rescuers find us.

Barb and Suzanne on the bridge over the raging waters.

Mud-boggin'!!

The Larrison girls taking a breather near the overflowing creek.

On the way into this hike, Mark and Travis expanded this footbridge from one plank to what you see here. Most helpful, especially to klutzes like myself. The small creek was nearly waist-deep in the center.

Elizabeth and Travis after the hike. Checking for ticks, maybe? 

Nothing creepy about the Indian Lake Museum. Nothing creepy at all.

Suzanne: say hello to Suzanne.

Elizabeth and McKenna playing in the postmaster's booth.

Suzanne and McKenna outside the museum. They hung out a lot together on this trip, and became friends.

Josh and Travis were very gentlemanly, helping Elizabeth over the rough spots in the trail.

A tree in the floodwaters.

McKenna checking out her iPod around the campfire. This was the first year where nearly everyone had a smart-object of some kind. Mark, Barb, and Scott were the only campers who didn't have smarthings. There was a healthy cell signal at the house, and wi-fi, which drew a strong contrast with Bette's Place, where we were cut off from the internet.