Monkling's Blog

Who goes out to a park when it’s 150 degrees outside? Okay, so it wasn’t quite 150. Maybe it just seemed that way. I was forced to listen to this from the other people living here:
“Let’s do something.”
“Yeah, I don’t want to sit in the house all day.”
“It’ll be cooler by the water.”
So I agree to head out to the north shore again, this time with the kids coming along as well. We decide to go off to Caumsett Park, where we got lost last week.

Funny what a difference the weather can make. Last week, the parking lot was packed and we had to park in a makeshift one. This time the parking lot was quite empty. After all, how many people enjoying going for a walk with sweat dripping down their entire bodies?

The first thing I did was make sure someone else had the map. “Steve, you will want to hold on to this because last week someone lost the map. You do not want to lose the map because if anyone falls over from heat stroke while you are lost in the woods, you will just have to stay there because there is no cell phone signal.”

After ensuring that the map was safe, the men discussed walking to the LI Sound. Theresa & I looked at each other and said, “Uh, no. We really don’t want to walk 4 miles so why don’t you guys go off and we’ll just stay on the nice paved path and walk under the trees.” They tried to convince us that it would be cooler near the water but we weren’t buying that. Even if it was 40 degrees near the water, you still had to walk 2 miles in the heat to get there.

While the men went off on their hike, we walked a short distance and decided it was way too hot to do any walking. We went back to the car for some cold water which I had been smart enough to pack and the Strawberry Shortcake kite:

Since there was only the barest hint of a breeze, it spent more time on the ground than in the air but Theresa did manage to get it flying for a little while. Then we just sat under the trees waiting for the men to return. When they finally did, they told us that, as it turns out, it wasn’t any cooler by the water, thus reassuring us that we made the right decision in not hiking for miles.

On the way home, we drove down a stretch of road Steve was familiar with. Among the multi-million dollar homes we passed, he told us one was the home they used to film the outside of the Addams Family. Once home, our research proved that to be wrong but we did find out they filmed a scene from Arthur at the park we had just come home from. And, thanks to a website called Long Island’s Gold Coast, we now have a list of other places that will require investigation. I don’t think we’ll be doing any exploring until after the weather cools off.