Montauk, NY

Last winter our forecast office introduced probabilistic winter products.  It was such a hit that the regional office decided we should do the same in Boston, New York, and Philadelphia offices.  So I was sent off for a few days to the regional office in Long Island for a planning meeting.

As always, I bring Millie when I can to my trips so I drove there, and stayed an extra night to check out Montauk - the most Eastern point on Long Island. It was a good 1.5-2 hours getting there since the highway eventually turns into a 2 lane road through the Hamptons.  Didn't see any celebrities when I stopped in East Hampton for lunch, but most of the people dressed like they're about to play tennis or golf, and couple of the tables around me looked as if they were planning ways to spend their money.  One table had a booklet of vacation homes, and another a map of some exotic vacation spot, I'm sure.

Feeling out of place, I scooted out of East Hampton pretty fast and was glad to arrive in Montauk.  It was a hilly place, and the views on the drive were pretty nice.  I arrived at Montauk Point around 3:30pm and found out there's an $8 charge to park.  Seems most of the state parks in NY charge $8 up to 4pm.  I decided to go kill time elsewhere until 4....

There wasn't much in the vicinity of Montauk Point so I headed out of there and stopped at a trail head across from a ranch.  The trail led to a beach, and although I only intended to walk about 10-15 minutes with Millie, I somehow ended up walking a mile and a half or so to a bluff with a view of Amsterdam Beach.  I could've walked down to the beach, but I was a bit worried about the rip currents sweeping Millie away so I stayed up top.

Once back to the trail head, there was a lot of commotion and vehicles at the parking lot and at the ranch.  Turns out they were on location for a new Showtime TV Series, The Affair, which is set in Montauk.  I didn't linger too long since I had no business there, so I headed back to Montauk Point.

The lighthouse at Montauk Point was closed when I got there, but I hadn't planned on going in so that was ok.  I took the above shot from outside the gate, and also got other vantage points just from walking around the point.  You can walk down to the beach on a trail near the lighthouse, and also back up to a little rest area & shop.  A lot of people were fishing on the rocky beach.  The view of the water all around Montauk was a nice refreshing change of scenery and I was glad I went.