Another Sunny Day for Hiking

Today was another gorgeous day!  After lunch, we headed out to Dam Pond Maritime Preserve, in East Marion, NY.  Known as a popular birding location, it has a couple of fairly short hiking/walking trails where one can see a variety of vegetation.

Upon entering the trail, we saw a lot of beautiful blooming Forsythia bushes.  At one point, I could hear one of my most favorite sounds - the haunting sound of wind blowing through pine tree needles.  Whenever I hear this distinct sound, I always feel Mom is saying hello to me.

Other sights in this preserve included a view of the salt pond, the Orient Causeway and an Osprey nest.  After this, we went on to Orient Point State Park at the very end of the North Fork of Long Island.  It was a great day!

Dam Pond Maritime Preserve

Osprey Nest - Dam Pond Maritime Preserve

Dam Pond Maritime Preserve 

Dam Pond Maritime Preserve

Dam Pond Maritime Preserve

Dam Pond Maritime Preserve

Orient Point State Park

Orient Point State Park - "Comfort Station" - LOL!

Orient Point State Park

Orient Point State Park

Laurel Lake Preserve Hike

This year marks our third annual Spring trip to Long Island.  Since gaining a delightful, fun-loving daughter-in-law who is a native Long Islander, we have tried to visit the area several times a year.   Our April visit usually coincides with our grandson's Spring Break.  We dearly love the vineyards and countryside of Long Island's North Fork, specifically the Greenport, Southold, and Cutchogue area!

The weather seems to be warmer for mid- to late- April from what we remember in past years.  Today was supposed to be sunny and close to 64 degrees.  That means that I wanted to get out and do some hiking!!

After "Googling" for some ideas, we decided to visit Laurel Lake Preserve today.  This preserve is located in Mattituck, NY.

• Laurel Lake is a 30-acre freshwater kettle hole that was formed more than 10,000 years ago.  The lake is over 45 feet deep, maybe as deep as 70 feet in some places. It is home to a diverse fish population including bass, pickerel, and perch.  
• Preserved land in the Laurel Lake area encompasses 480+ acres.  The trailhead is on a 31-acre site.

It was a perfect day for a walk!  Even though it seemed we were far away from civilization in the woods, we could still here the highway noise in some places.  At one place we even heard the LIR (train) go by.  

Here are some pictures from our walk:

Top 5 Things We Loved about Long Island, NY

1.  Getting to spend time with family:  our son, soon-to-be daughter-in-law (and her wonderful family!), and our grandson.  Since we live so far away from them, this month-long stay was a luxury that has spoiled us getting to see them so much!

2.  The  Vineyards.  Out of the 60 some-odd vineyards on the North Shore, we were able to visit a good number of them.  The off-season timing of our visit to New York worked in our favor, as many times we were the only visitors in the tasting rooms and were able to enjoy many long conversations with the vineyard owners and staff.  Our favorite vineyard, by far was Castello di Borghese Vineyard.  They have the most wonderful Cabernet Franc as well as a luscious White Pinot Noir.   On our last visit there before going home, we got to meet the owner of the vineyard, Bernard, whose thick Italian accent was a delight to hear.

  

3.  The ocean.  We took advantage of our month-long stay to visit as many shoreline hiking trails as we could.  My favorite was Inlet Pond Preserve, right here in Greenport.  At the beginning of every sunny, warmish day, I would say to Fred, "Let's go back to Inlet Pond!", he would respond, "What is it with you and Inlet Pond?".  "It's just sooo pretty!" I would respond!

Montauk Point 

Shadmoor Preserve

Inlet Pond Park

4.  The parks and preserves.  There are tons of places to hike on the Long Island.  We hiked at Arshamomaque Preserve, Inlet Pond Preserve (twice!), Mashomack Preserve, Montauk Walking Dunes, Montauk Point, and Shadmoor Park.  

Inlet Pond Park

Walking Dunes of Montauk

Inlet Pond Park

Mashomack Park and Preserve

Arshamomaque Preserve

5.  The friendly people of Long Island.  Everywhere we went people were so friendly and welcoming to these two Arkansans.  The staff, teachers, and fellow classmates at NOFO Wellness in Cutchogue made us feel like we were natives.  There was one lady in Spinning Class who said she has a cousin who lives in a town in Arkansas with a lot of lakes and in an area called "The Highlands".  We said, "Hmm, we live in "The Highands", in a town with a lot of lakes".  Turns out the cousin actually lives in Bella Vista, AR too!  The folks remodeling the apartment above where we were staying were also great!  They were more than willing to help us out with anything we needed.  The friendly, family-owned shops and restaurant owners were to fun to visit with.  It turned out that even though quite a few attractions were not open yet in April, we were fortunate to see the North Shore as most natives to the area know and love the area.

Give Love

"Give Love" - my new favorite yogi music is by MC Yogi and is just so HAPPY!   The artists' music style is a little hip-hop/reggae/Bollywood/dub style.   I downloaded several of his songs from FreeGal Music via the Bentonville Public Library website (free and legal!!).   I do still love music by Snatam Kaur for listening to during my practice, but it's always nice to have a variety of music on hand for whatever mood hits ya.

Monday's yoga class in Cutchoque, NY was my last session with Wendy.  She will not be back until May and by then I'll be back in Arkansas.  During her class, as part of our initial relaxation and focusing, she had us roll our blankets into a tootsie roll shape and then we lay on top of the rolled mat, vertically, placing one end of the mat at the base of our spine and the other at our head.  Then we simply let our arms hang at our sides allowing gravity to open up our chest, allowing our shoulder blades to come towards each other.  This was a wonderful feeling!  After a few moments in this pose, we drew our knees to our chest and rocked gently back and forth while trying to stay on top of the rolled mat. Very nice stretch!

Tuesday and Wednesday, the weather finally warmed up enough to take our Grandson hiking at several nature preserve areas on Long Island and Block Island.  It's a challenge these days to get kids away from their "electronics", and so important to do so, I feel.  He enjoyed the hikes, and we enjoyed watching him being an almost 10-year old boy throwing rocks and using sticks as swords, etc. as boys will do.

Finally, my review of "The Dog Stars" by Peter Heller.  When I started the book, I thought "Oh, this is going to be dark and depressing like "The Road" by Cormac McCarthy".  However, I was pleasantly surprised to find it much more hopeful and contemplative all-in-all.  Some reviewers don't like the writers style in this book - it is choppy, often lacking punctuation.  I found the style to be fitting given  what the narrator, Hig, has been through.  It is scary to consider some of the events in the story that led to the apocalyptic end - to think about the damage humankind is even now causing the earth.  Could we actually come to this?  What's also amazing to me is that the vast majority of people just don't care...they continue to over consume and pollute.  The best parts of this book are the relationships - how they develop and change, and the love and compassion that is still there in the end.  I definitely recommend this book.

Peace,
Carrie

"Love One Another as Christ Loves Us" - John 13:34-35

"Only love can cure hatred, hatred never cured hatred."  - Buddha