Wednesday Sept 23
We got up early to pack up and leave for the 1h 10m drive to New London to catch the ferry to Orient Point, Long Island. We had booked the 11am ferry but we made such good time we made it onto the 10am ferry. We lost 30 minutes of our ‘saved’ time when the ferry had problems lowering the drawbridge to the car exit - when I looked at it, I could see this was no surprise - the mechanism looked very old and rusted - in need of a complete overhaul.
Anyway we were finally on the road from Orient Point to Reiner and Marianne’s house in Southampton. The drive took about 1h 15m through very scenic farm land - fields of pumpkins and vineyards etc etc. Once at R&M’s we unloaded and Reiner bar-b-qued a ginormous steak for a late lunch.
After lunch we drove to Oakland Bar & Restaurant at Hampton Bays for Happy Hour - alas it was closed for a private function in spite of the fact that Marianne had called earlier to confirm they would be open (as places were starting to reduce opening hours as the season wound down). It was unfortunate as this was the most beautiful setting overlooking the sand dunes and ocean. Instead we drove to The Back Bar on the other side of the Ponquogue Bridge. We all had a cocktail before continuing on to Edgewater still in Hampton Bays - it was hip-hop and happening - we sat at the bar for drinks then ordered very generous bar snacks for dinner - I hit the jackpot with the seared tuna - amazing. Then it was back home to bed.
Thursday Sept 24
We were all a bit slow in the morning due to the previous day’s “BDO” (Big Day Out). Marianne had kindly made an appointment for me at a local hair salon so I had my hair done - no more “bad hair days”.
We had a little walk around the town of Southampton. By midday the gang of 4 were on the road again - to Montauk Point - about 38 miles away. We walked around the harbour then stopped for a late lunch at Gosman’s - right on the water - a wonderful warm and sunny day. Marianne and I had lobster rolls (a local and New England speciality), Reiner had a whole lobster (where he insisted on giving me one of the claws) and Dieter had a portobello sambo. All rated 10 out of 10.
We drove back to Southampton (passing though East Hampton, Bridge Hampton and Sag Harbour) very beautiful small towns - lined with beautiful houses. In Southampton we drove along some of the roads lined with the $20+ million houses of the rich and famous. We stopped at Cooper Beach (R&M’s local beach) and watched the tide coming in and sun slowly sinking. A few enormous seagulls kept a watching brief.
From here it was onto the Driver’s Seat for Happy Hour - where drinks are about $3 each - the first cheap F&B we’ve come across in the land of The (not so) Free. We proceeded around the corner to "75 Main" - another B&R where we had another happy hour drink, meeting up with R&M’s good friends, Donna and Thierry.
Finally we picked up some take away Thai for dinner - and it was off to bed after eating the Thai takeaway that is.
Friday Sept 25
It was another nice day - we had a leisurely brekkie.
Now an aside here is the saga of Dieter's missing puffer jacket:- The previous day no one could find Dieter’s puffer jacket which he’d had in the boot of Reiner’s car on Wednesday in case it was cool at the beach. He had never needed it but come Thursday it was nowhere to be found. Thinking it lost, we sort of put it out of mind assuming it had been swallowed up by a black hole. However, Friday after breakfast, while still lamenting the loss of his jacket and mystery of where it could have gotten to, Dieter noticed, by total fluke, something sticking out from behind the couch, low and behold, it was his jacket which he had thrown on the back of the couch; it had obviously slipped down behind.
Anyway following the miracle of the returning jacket (maybe influenced by Pope Francis arrival in NYC the previous day) we all set out for the day’s touring activities. As part of this we stopped at Donna & Thierry’s house for a “sticky-beak” - the house was very impressive with it’s quintessential Hampton decor. From there is was off to Sag Habour for a look around and a light lunch - which turned out to be humongous sandwiches.
We returned to the house in the late afternoon to rest, blog and freshen up for the evening’s festivities. Dinner with R&M and a few of their friends at Pelligrinos - a local pizzeria. It turned into a bit of a blowout with "happy hour” lasting until 10pm.
Saturday Sept 26
It was another nice day but alas time to go. We had a leisurely morning with lunch on R&M’s balcony. We set off in our hire car at 3pm for JFK to catch our 8pm flight to LAX. It took us a bit longer than we thought to get to JFK due to a wrong turn and a detour to fuel up and of course heavy traffic. We dropped the car at the rental depot and took the sky train to our terminal where thanks to flying first class and “TSA pre-clear” (no idea how we qualified for this) we were sitting the AA First Class lounge about 5 minutes after arriving at the terminal. It was a great flight - lie-flat seats and FC. The flight arrived a bit early so we got to our airport hotel, The residence Inn, around 11:30pm local time - totally zapped at it was nearly 3am for us.