May 8 Long Island and heading home!

Tuesday we left the Big Apple and made our way out to Wildwood State Park in Wading River; it would be a good spot to explore the Eastern part of the Island. The trip there was not very calming; first the tolls. New Jersey in particular is known as the World champs of tolls!! seems every 15-20 miles we came to another toll booth; on this segment to Wading River we came to our 4th toll. The attendant asked for $46.00!!! well we had not enough cash, we told her so, she simply said "that's ok they'll mail you a bill!! The other thing is the condition of the roads in New Jersey, especially on the NJ turnpike; there were more potholes on todays 2 hour drive through this section than all the rest of the 8500 miles we've travelled so far; and we saw the results when we got into the rig when we got to the state park; there was more stuff in different places than again all the rest of the trip combined.
One of the planned items on this trip was an invitation golf game from my largest lamp

 beautiful State Park on Long Island

 

supplier, Satco, who have their head offices here in Brentwood on Long Island. Well the venue was the highlight' Bethpage Black course :) :). Now for those of you who are not familiar with this name; they have hosted the US Open Golf Championship twice, as well as the FedEx cup playoff tournament called The Barclays. So when I heard we were going there (i'll be honest I had planted a seed about where I'd like to go :)) I was really feeling like a little kid going to the candy store. The rep from Satco was David Sheppard, one of their inside sales guys I had never met; and they weren't kidding. 34 years old, and I could tell on the driving range this kid had golfed a lot in his time. The real treat? we got to the starters shack, and there was no one else (golfers) except there were two caddies standing there with us. Well, now I really had to thank Billy, the owner of Satco. The one problem with this course, is that there is a sign at the tee off that says in bold letters: "Bethpage Black is designed only for high skilled golfers". Ok I was getting a little nervous. But the course I thought is no different than any other, right? Green grass, fairways, greens; no problem. This course is a brute. For those who know anything about difficulty ratings, most courses we play back home are between 115 to 130, 130 being fairly difficult due to narrow fairways, undulating fairways and greens and so on. But 150???
Well I put that all aside, but started to realize I was on my game. I shot a 39 on the front 9 and was tied with David. Back nine I was only 8 over and I had dreams of breaking 80 (always my goal) until I hit number 18. it is a 430 yard brute that narrows at 280 yards with traps on either side. Well I nailed it! BUT there was a cross wind that pushed the drive into the right trap. No problem, 9 iron onto, 2 putt to get my 79. Short is took me 3 shots to get out into another trap, 2 putt for my triple bogey. Drats. But after the round and looking back it was one of the highlights on my golf career.
Caroline joined us for dinner after, all in all an awesome day.
The next day we ventured out Eastward, towards Montauk, this is the most Eastern part of Long Island. We explored the lighthouse park, the beach, a beautiful spot. We then drove over to Orient Point after two little ferries (more tolls). We had dinner in the this town and made our way back to our home.
Friday we checked out of the state park and headed to Satco; this was where we would be leaving our 5th wheel as we fly back tonight for one week. This will be the last blog till we start again next week Saturday DV

 rush hour in Manhattan

 this is the beach a 5 minute bike ride from our camp spot in Wildwood State Park

 Golfing Bethpage with David Sheppard from Satco, our largest lamp supplier. This was hole number 7

 hole # 17, a diabolical hole surrounded by sand traps. I bogeyed this hole

 looking down the fairway of hole number 18 where I got a triple bogey

 Montauk Lighthouse