long island for a year

 Looking east... Traditionally Italian people say you should  spend Christmas with your family and Easter with whom you please. In the last five or six years, living in Berlin and having there my "new" family, I was spending Easter - or at least Easter Monday - with them, which is actually nice and fun, because Ralph has a pretty large family too: with uncles and aunts, cousins, some of whom have kids as old as our kids; plus Ralph's grandma is still alive (103 years old and rather healthy), so there is a  four generation get together eating delicious homemade German Kuchen (lucky me). Anyway, this year it was just the four of us, and we enjoyed the two beautiful sunny days to be outside and explore more of Long Island. Since Carlotta was wishing so much to ride her bike, we needed a place which was not the usual Heritage Park in Mount Sinai and still bike friendly, so we headed to Sunken Meadow State Park, which has a 3/4 mile boardwalk wide enough to practice biking...

Finally good weather and finally outdoors... On Saturday we decided to give Wildwood State Park another chance - last time it was really too windy to enjoy the walk. This Park on the North Shore is easily accessible and just a fifteen minute drive from our home, which is very convenient (no complaints in the car is always very relaxing). We were hoping to use the boat ramp like we did the first time and then walk along the shore, but this time it was closed to public (to the public who doesn't want to climb on the fence) so we took the shortest of the four trails - marked in red - and walked through the beech forest for 1,8 miles. For the blue trail (2,9 miles), the orange trail (2,3 miles) and the yellow trail (3,8 miles) you need to organize food and drinks, unless you want to hear "Are we there yet?" more than hour long. The red trail goes past one bluff from which you can enjoy this view: I got myself "Hiking Long Island" by Lee McAllister, which is of co...