My cousin Scott showed us a great hike through the woods onto a rocky beach with a spectacular view of Shelter Island in the distance and beyond that, the North Fork of Long Island. A handful of trails begin behind the Sag Harbor golf course. The area is refreshing unspoiled by development.
Filed under New York
Sag Harbor used to be the low-key outlier of Hamptons shopping. Or so I recall from the many thanksgivings past out here on the southeastern tip of Long Island.
Not anymore.
On the Saturday after turkey day, the shops on Sag Harbor’s small Main Street were packed with well heeled shoppers browsing in beautiful (and very expensive) home goods stores with suede furniture, exquisite ceramics, delicate linens, clever gizmos and knickknacks. Fun to browse. Not affordable to purchase.
Among the ones we liked: Modern General (where I did buy a $13 mug for my son that reads: Text your mother. This is the third store with that name I’ve been to this year. The first in Albuquerque; the second in Milwaukee.) the 1818 store (inside a lovely old home we are guessing was built circa 1818) and Comerford.
Gwyneth Paltrow’s “Goop” store is also somewhere near, but we didn’t chance upon it.
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Stayed at yet another borrowed mansion in the Hamptons this Thanksgiving, this one overlooking the exclusive Georgica Pond neighborhood (home to Grey Gardens and folks like Steven Spielberg) although I didn’t realize at first where I was riding the mansion’s borrowed bike. The caretaker suggested I take the bike for a spin so I rode on a pleasantly flat road through the woods to a road that seemed to lead to a body of water. I did see a private sign but also a welcome sign to an estate sale or tour so I rode on in past a few cedar shingled houses, typical fancy Hamptons stuff, and onto the beach which I thought would be a bay but soon realized was Georgica Pond. It was me and the sea birds. No other sign of life as I rode on the sand in the no speed fat tire, wide seat, bike. When the sand started getting soupy and I could find no quasi-public exit, I made a quick dash through someone’s back yard, pushing the bike up to the main road and out.
I soon found Beach Lane, a far more welcoming road to ride, wide, flat, leading straight to the ocean. Gentle wind, sun-soaked, the road was dotted with the occasional mansion, farm-stand and old gnarly-trunked tree. I parked my bike and walked out toward the crashing waves.
Filed under New York
My brother has mastered the art of finding inexpensive or relatively inexpensive ways to vacation in the Hamptons. Staying with incredibly generous relatives certainly is a great start. Beyond that, he found a great book sale that operates on Saturday mornings from the public library in Southampton. He brought me along last Saturday and I was like the proverbial kid in a candy store. I couldn’t believe how many great novels and nonfiction books and kids books, you name it, – many only a year or so old – were there and how cheap they were (most $2-$4). We both left with big bags of books – I got maybe 12 books, many of them hardcover, for the price of one hardcover ($30). The next trick will be getting them home in my carryon luggage – fortunately I gave some away as gifts.
We also walked on the beach today in Southampton on one of those days when the weather is somewhere between summer and fall – and we had the beach largely to ourselves. Which is a rare treat. (In contrast to the main drag, 27, which was chock-a-block with cars much of the weekend, especially on Saturday morning.) Home to Iowa tomorrow – and hoping we won’t encounter too much traffic in the morning en route to LaGuardia.
Filed under New York
TakeBetsywithyou
TakeBetsywithyou 