home sweet home...temporarily

I’m going to start this blog on my last night at my friend Pat’s house in New York (at least for 10 days) and perhaps post it when I get home. I’ll be flying back to Sacramento tomorrow (Monday 8/27) and leaving again to come back here and pick up my car on 9/6, so will probably see some of you in person.
Even though I’ve had a great time on this first leg of my journey, I’m anxious to get home and see my loved ones. I can imagine their excitement too – joyful noise, the loving looks, their cold noses – but enough about my dogs. I miss Naomi too!
Some statistics from my trip: I’ve driven 7679 miles so far (as of my last fillup) and averaged 54.22 miles per gallon. Each gallon has cost an average of $3.03, so I’m spending about 5.5 cents per mile on gasoline. Imagine if I’d driven something less fuel efficient…like my ‘97 Subaru Outback.
On this last day on Long Island Pat and I drove around to the south end of the island and enjoyed a couple of the beaches on the Atlantic side at Montauk and the Hamptons. Despite the high land values, there is still quite a bit of agriculture and a lot of farm stands. We stopped for some fresh peaches and just-made apple donuts. We also attempted a hike but found the trail overgrown and ended up in a thicket of trees – looked like maybe one of the local kids’ party spots.
The weather was a bit iffy, but it cleared up so in the afternoon we went out on the ocean in a motorboat with one of Pat’s friends. The seas were about as flat as they could be, so great boating conditions. Then we took the boat out into the West Hampton village, tied up and had a pretty good dinner at a TexMex restaurant, followed by Haagen-Dasz. Conditions were ideal coming back, even though it was dark – there seemingly wasn’t a ripple on the bay as we headed back to the marina. All in all, one of the best days of my trip. Not a lot of mileage on the legs (I’m just barely over 10,000 steps for the day) but I guess I can afford to rest a bit.
I have a 6:00am flight out of Newark, so we’ll be leaving the house at about 3am. Fortunately for me, Pat has an obligation in upstate New York, so he’ll give me a ride to the airport – otherwise I’d be sleeping in the airport tonight.
Update: sitting here in the Chicago O’Hare airport on a long delay in my connecting flight to Sacramento. Rather than just vegetate, I took advantage of the ‘tinkly lights’ to get some airport hiking in – about 5.5 miles and 1200 foot elevation gain. Pretty good hike for being indoors! [For those who don’t fly United Airlines through Chicago, let me explain the ‘tinkly lights’: United ‘owns’ two whole terminals in O’Hare, terminal B and terminal C. Quite a while back, maybe 15 years ago, they connected these through an underground tunnel and commissioned someone to create an arty display of neon lights on the ceiling. So while you are riding the moving sidewalk (or speed-walking, like I was) the lights illuminate randomly, accompanied by some tinkling space-art-type music. It’s actually pretty cool…] So I took advantage of the flight delay to get some leg-work in. Admittedly, I don’t envy the person who will have to sit next to me on when the flight finally takes off…I should have packed an extra shirt in my carry-on, but I usually don’t do that on the way home.
Second update: flight delayed now for more than 8 hours. I could have slept in! I took further advantage of the delay by actually going outside and attempting to circumnavigate the airport (knowing that I’d have to face the security check coming back in). It was worth it; I didn’t circle the airport but did get approximately another 4 miles in. So I guess I’ll make my target for the day after all! Meanwhile back at the ranch, the home front is not too happy…she took the day off of work to pick me up at the airport and spend time with me, and now I won’t be in until 8pm. Sigh…I think United will be getting a nasty phone call.
Last update: finally made it home. Happy to be here, even though I’ve already been running around doing a million things. Somehow running errands has already added up to 6 miles on my pedometer, although I really can’t call it a hike! Anyway, I’ll post another blog a few days after I get back on the road (flying back to New York on September 6).