Tag: Sunken Meadow State Park

Outdoorsy Part XIX: Golf Adjacent

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Sunken Meadow is huge. I’ve been there a few times now, and I’m always seeing something new. This time I found out that there’s a trail around the golf course that leads straight to a bluff above the sound. Birds flitter around. I don’t like birds but I loved them here. There’s a place where you can hit golf balls into the water. Thinking about that now, maybe it’s not so great but at the time it was all kinds of wonder.

Before seeing all that though, I managed to spray my water bottle with bug spray. And part of my windshield. The spray on my water bottle was the chemical-ish kind, and the spray on my windshield was the organic essential oils kind. That means my water was now semi-toxic and my windshield was not going to get clean any time soon. More impressively, I got out of the car and was ready to go in under five minutes. Goal achieved!! (Now for the next goal: Don’t spray the water bottle with bug spray).

While capt hit golf balls I made my way away from the edge of the cliff so that I wouldn’t fall off and I wouldn’t be hit on the backswing. Then a shirtless man ran by in the woods behind us commenting on how beautiful the view is. Perhaps the cousin of the ghost of King Zog? 

Side note: We actually did not find the ruins we thought we found in Muttontown. We found something but not exactly what I had been looking for.

Anyway, we made our way down to the beach and walked it back. We took a break on the boardwalk because I was hungry and thirsty and working up a good swass. And  if you didn’t know all three things about me already, hello, welcome, you must be new. 

After trailing through that side of the park, we walked over to the boggy part. We saw some deer. I talked to them. They looked at me. It was a moment. Mind you, I don’t really enjoy animals (see the aforementioned birds) but here I am, all Dr. Doolittle.

The boggy part was an in and out trail unless we came out at the end on a golfing green and walked across the course while golfers were putting and swinging and doing what golfers do. Capt figured I could wear a collared shirt to look like a golfer and blend in. My idea was, How about not that? We didn’t even make it to that point anyway because the flora closed in on the path and ticks are not on my agenda. We turned back towards the road with me leading the way out for a few paces. This is what we call bravery.

Sure it was buggy and sandy, and it was also sunny and grand. 

I got home and took the best shower of my life. All that bug spray—two kinds!— and sunscreen and sweat and sand washed away.

Then I took my mom to a tiny beach for a quick visit and got all sunburned. So much for safety first. Still a day outside from start to finish is great for the soul. 

Outdoorsy Part XVI: Rain No Rain

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Here’s something you should know that I keep forgetting to say. I am a nightmare to hike with. Actually, not for the whole time. Mostly, it’s when arriving to a park. I take maybe ten minutes to get out of the car. There’s a lot of situating that goes on. When I finally get moving, I’m mostly okay except for when I’m jumping at noises that I’m convinced are bears or when there’s a path I refuse to take because I decide it leads straight to something Dante would write about, which I’m sure would also disappoint Frost. My goal this summer is to get out of the car in under five minutes.

I’m still new to hiking (or, as some people in a nature group call what I do, walking –seriously, I shared some nature stuff and they were like, that’s more of a walk than a hike—how about I didn’t ask you about words—anyway), so weather is a factor. I bring a lot with me in case of weather changes or mud or dehydration. This is mainly why I take so long getting out of the car. I decide what I need and what can stay, and the decision is never easy.

The Captain and I had signed up for a group hike through Caleb Smith State Park. Rain was in the forecast, and the hike leader responded to my RSVP with Be ready for showers. Okay, I guess hiking in the rain is a thing even though the description said rain cancels. The morning of when it was still raining, I got an email that canceled the hike. The rain was more than a shower but intermittent, so I guess that’s the line—uncertain rain.

We went hiking anyway, starting a bit later because the forecast called for a decent break. We started off in a drizzle (after I got out of the car in about ten minutes, locked it, put my key away, paid for parking, then had to find my key, open the car, and put the parking ticket on the dash—a nightmare, I tell you!). The park was mostly paved, though we crossed over into some woodsy, soggy, muddy areas. The drizzle subsided quickly, so the only rain that was happening was secondary from the trees.

We found some spots where the leaves looked burned. That’s not natural, right?

The highest point in the park is 120 feet up. Not nearly as high as Jaynes Hill. Still pretty steep though, and my glutes were loving it. The steps up were like lunges on overdrive.

Because the park was empty, deer were out. One actually ran across the walking path. A group of three were eating leaves. Then a group of what seemed like ten galloped away when they heard humans. There were no bears.

After finding the main building—bathrooms! I need to find out what other women do when they need a bathroom and are in the middle of a hike (or a walk, whatever) because if the only option is to pop a squat, I’ll do it, but if there are other options, I’m up for knowing about them—we went down the road to Sunken Meadow for another climbing hike. Before the hike, we skipped rocks. My first rock was basically a throw diagonally into the water. My second rock? Skipped! Getting my nature groove back one awful throw at a time.

The only part of the hike that gets tricky comes up towards the end when I have to come down from the bluff onto the beach where there’s no foothold and it’s a step about six inches too steep for me to actually step down. This is what roots are for—I grabbed onto tree roots and made my way half down. Then I half hung from a skinny tree trunk and made the rest of the way down backwards. Little people are highly resourceful.

Outdoorsy Part I: Sunken Meadow

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I’ve got a summer wish list that I’ve been checking things off of like a woman on a mission who must get all these things done before the bus explodes. You know, like Sandra Bullock in Speed but without Keanu Reeves and without a bus. The reason I’ve been mission-izing my wish list dawned on me in a moment of clarity while microblogging: I’m trying to prove that I can have a fun time on my own without the help of anyone else, thank you very much, so you [most recent guy who broke my heart] can suck it hard. This moment of clarity allowed me to discover the following:

  1. No one ever said I couldn’t have a fun time on my own or with someone. No one ever accused me of not being fun.
  2. I’m having a fun time, so trying to create vengeance through fun seems nonsensical, and takes some of the fun out of the fun.
  3. No one needs to suck anything, hard, soft, or otherwise.

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Most items on my wish list involve nature. I’ve never considered myself a nature girl. Here I am in the summer of quarantine, visiting every state park I can with a handy Empire Pass in my back pocket. Something about lockdown brings out the need for nature. Also, Long Island is beautiful, and I want to explore it, especially since travel is out of the question right now.

One of my friends used to work at Sunken Meadow State Park, and all during quarantine he’s been regaling me with these neat vignettes about his antics. What better guide to have? We met up in the parking lot with him driving around to get me and bring me to where I needed to go to start, which I told him was 85% going to happen (the %15 percent that I would wind up in the right place when there are lots of lots to choose from was generous). Then off we went, onto a trail and over a bridge and I stopped short.

It. Was. Gorgeous. The sky was overcast, and the clouds were moving grey, and the water was running right under us, and there were birds, and the mountain shone so evergreen (okay, it’s not a mountain. It’s a big hill. But maybe a mountain. I don’t know. I’m new to nature, remember).

We went up a path, found a picnic area, and went up another path, and then another kind of steep path. At the top of that one, he stopped and was like, Yeah, that hill deserves a break. Lungs pounding, I stopped too and was like, Thank you for saying that because I thought I was out of shape for a moment. He told me on the other side of the fence nearby was a hill called Cardiac Hill. So what did we just climb? I couldn’t figure out how it could be much different since the fence was simply separating us from the same mountain/hill/land-incline.

Then suddenly, I was walking on a ledge and then through a forest and we were in the woods, y’all. And then through the woods, up and down and on steep and narrow winding paths, I reminded him, If you encounter a really large gap, we’ll have to double back. Because, you know, I’m short, and I wasn’t about to leap over a gap when the landing was wide enough for only one of my tiny feet. Luckily, no leaping was needed, and we came to the bluffs, and we were at the beach.

So to recap: we were on a mountain => we were in a forest => we were at the beach.

How does this even happen? Whoever complains about Long Island needs to be dragged up Cardiac Hill and rolled down a beach bluff.

We got down to the beach, and he gave me options: walk back through the woods or walk on the beach. The beach! The beach! The North Shore beaches are rocky and narrow, and since I’m a South Shore gal, I don’t get enough of these other kinds of beaches.

Apparently, when you’re from the North Shore, you skip rocks. When you’re from the South Shore, you do something you call skipping rocks, but all you really do is throw a rock into the water and watch it sink. We tried this several times, my friend showing me form and flicking and finding of the good rocks, and me side-winding and twisting and tossing a rock into the water with very little hopping and a whole lot of going under without much fanfare.

Also along the beach were fishermen. Which meant I walked by a full fish dead on the sand. Also dead was a large crab thingamajig with a long pointy tale, drifting in the shoreline as if it were once alive and decided to be dead to freak me out.

See? I’m so one with nature, now.

Actually, I am somewhat proud of myself. When we finished that path, my friend was like, but wait there’s more! We went down into another part of the park where all these little hermit crabs crawled around, in and out of holes. Crabs walk sideways, y’all! Like, I know this, but like, now I really know it.

At that point, thunder rolled and a bit of a spritz started. He was like, Are you good with rain? I was like, rain doesn’t make me melt, so I’m fine except if there’s lightning. He was like, Yeah, if you see the hair on the top of my head start to rise up…, and I jumped in, Yeah, I’ll take cover, for sure. He stopped and was like, Or maybe you can tell me first as a warning. I make a great friend sometimes.

No lightning. No hair on end. No taking cover. Well, that’s not completely true. We went semi-covered in a semi-covert operation to get a picture of a bird that I decided I wanted to stalk. We’d been talking about a recent new story about a woman who got too close to a moose and was pretty much jacked up by the moose when she got too close. I think everything about that story is right. Leave the animals alone. Follow the rules. If you break the rules and annoy the animals, you get what you get and you don’t get upset. Okay, maybe you get upset, but you deserve it. A little over an hour later, here I am in marshy territory, sneaking all up in this bird’s business because I decide I want to be friendly with the animals instead of being grossed out by them (in my defense, both animals I encountered on the beach were dead, and that’s freaky). The bird kept flying away from me, and then I decided to maybe leave it alone before it went all Hitchcock on me.

We came up on the boardwalk. We walked over two more bridges. We finished a whole lot of the park, which meant we’d finished a whole segment of the Greenbelt. The Greenbelt trailis 32 miles running north and south. In my days at Heckscher, I completed some of it. Now here I was at the other end, another segment complete. Is it possible to complete in one day? My Great Saunter experiences point to a big fat No for me.

Sunken Meadow July 7 (2)

With sand in my shoes, wind in my hair, sweat on my skin, and a hum of sky in my ears, we finished the hike, regrouped in our cars, and called it a day.  A great day, for sure.