When Matt left you last, we were recovering from our weekend in New York… but Monday dawned and we were up with the lark to get over to Long Island to meet Michelle and John, our new pals who we had met in January on our snorkelling trip in the Florida Keys.

Sometimes on campsites as you can imagine there are a few permanent residents who we see setting off for work or coming back at night. Last Monday we must have looked the same as we took the 8am train back to Grand Central with all the other commuters. Lucky for us that instead of suits and shirts our luggage consisted of bikinis and swimming trunks!

We dashed across New York City (still loving it) and got to Penn Station where the Long Island Rail Road sets off from and took the train to Babylon station where Michelle came and picked us up. They will be reading this blog, so I want them to turn away now to spare their blushes – but we had the most fantastic time and they made us so welcome. Bearing in mind we have spent a limited time together previously and only been able to keep in touch with emails over the last few months, they were delightful company and we never stopped laughing or talking all the time we were with them.

They live on Long Island but have a motor boat which we loaded up with the cooler and our bags and set off across Great South Bay to get to their holiday home on Fire Island. Wonderful to be on the water with the wind blowing our hair (well maybe not so much for Matt!) whilst we sped under the road bridge and past the lighthouse which used to mark the end of Fire Island but is now five miles along the coast as the sand barrier that is Fire Island has repositioned itself.

Ocean Bay is amazing. We came into the port, moored the boat and then walked to the house. There are no cars on this part of Fire Island – it is a bit like a festival in that things are carried on trollies and people are on foot or pushbikes. As it is America it is still a grid, but one of sandy paths making their way down to the ocean with the loveliest wooden houses and gardens along the route. It was a beautiful place and Matt and I were thrilled to be part of it for a few days as we would never have got there in Reg!

Monday was the day of the eclipse in the US so we set off for the beach to see if it would go dark. Rather like our 1999 experience, New York was not on the path of totality so although the sun clearly had a bite out of it from the moon (which we could see with the special glasses) in general it only went a bit like twilight between 2 and 3pm.

The beach on Fire Island was superb. Sandy and very strictly policed (no eating or litter at all – we did a see a cop on the beach in full uniform and armed of course!) with the waves of the Atlantic rolling in, but it was warm enough and safe enough on our first couple of days for people to swim. If not safe enough, of course as this is the US there are also the Baywatch lifeguards to help. They do blow their whistles a lot – and when you first sit down you do half expect Pamela Anderson or the Hoff to come running along the beach carrying that stupid float. After a while you get pretty blasé and do not even notice people trying to drown themselves!!

Monday night Michelle and John took us to a great bar on the harbour for fresh lobster. Matt and I were completely cack handed getting it out of its shell but to say it was fresh was an understatement – it was delicious and came with some really tasty garlicy potatoes and corn on the cob.

After a few drinks, we retired inside and John and Matt played some pool. I have never known that Matt was such a hot shot and couple of times John was worried by the left handed, odd eyed genius that is my darling husband – until Matt sabotaged his own efforts by throwing in a few foul shots. John won the contest but maybe this will be continued… The music was excellent in the bar and it rounded off a perfect day.

Tuesday, we started off after a lovely breakfast in the garden with a cycle ride around this part of the island. Another new skill for Matt and me to master were the bikes without brakes. Poor B and Tim had had these in Yosemite and I do not think I had appreciated what a knack it is to stop these things! You have to peddle backwards to come to a stop. We made it around the island and no one was hurt. John thought it was very amusing that at nearly fifty we had never ridden a beach cruiser before – but Matt stressed we have too many hills at home for these bikes to be safe. I think we got away with it!

Tuesday afternoon Matt and I walked along the beach to the actual National Seashore part of Fire Island. We love a national park as you all know by now – but the sunken forest which lies in the dunes was full of biting things which we did not love quite so much. Nonetheless the walk along the beach was perfect. Windy, salty, loads of shorebirds and gulls and crashing waves. Definitely one of the highlights of our trip.

Tuesday, we had a lovely meal at the house and Michelle supplied frozen watermelon margaritas. Lethal but we behaved ourselves and they were absolutely delicious.

On Wednesday, we went off for the beach again until it was home time. The waves were magnificent as the wind was coming from the north so really making them crash onto the beach. The whistle was blowing a lot that day and there was a ban on swimming.

We set off on the boat back to Long Island early afternoon. John let me have a go steering and I managed to avoid the bridge and oncoming traffic – but let him take over for the docking in their boat house at the end of their garden.

Sad to say our farewells but we might meet again in Nashville in the autumn and of course when we fly back from JFK in December we will be sure to see Michelle and John again then. They are only friends from this year as they were the nicest, youngest and most fun people to be with whilst camping. We have had some great chats about Trump, Brexit, the Queen – you name it, we have compared notes. Also, a lot of geeky camping talk as who else would understand about poo pipes and grey water?

So back on the Long Island Rail Road we heard from Sarah and Phil that they were in New York. Sarah used to work with Matt in Sydney at Hewlett Packard. They came and met us at Penn Station. It seemed things could not get any more exciting – Hanna, Michelle and John and now Sarah and Phil who because they live in New Zealand now we have not seen for a few years. We had a great catch up and met with their friends Phil and Joyti who were meeting Sarah and Phil in New York to celebrate their 50th birthdays. We had a super dinner in the Breslin and we dragged ourselves off to get our train to Croton to get back to Reg.

Seeing Sarah and Phil was so strange in the middle of NYC and completely unexpected as we had no idea that we would all be there are the same time. It was a special moment as we could have tried to plan it and it may not have worked out, but as it was it felt like we had seen them just last week the way that it does with good pals.

On the train back to Croton we struggled to stay awake, now with the tired and emotional commuters, but still a little sandy and salty no doubt compared to some of them. Reg was fine – covered in leaves and bit spidery on the outside but all secure and dry this week!

Thursday was a boring day of being back to reality. We washed, shopped and drove through Connecticut to get to next site. The traffic is very different in New England to other places we have driven. The roads are narrower and bendy. The drivers are European in that they are impatient and like undertaking. In our slightly jaded state on Thursday we managed to drive under a 10ft 8inch bridge which luckily could not have been labelled correctly as otherwise we have no roof! Thank goodness, we did not start our trip here as it like last November all over again – we are having to really concentrate in Reg to get him from A to B. I think if we had started here we would have given up as you have to have eyes in the back of your head. We went on an RV forum to try and get the best sat nav for RV’s to avoid low bridges after the Thursday incident and lots of people said do not drive an RV in New England – hire a car and stay in motels!!

Anyway, we camped in Mystic, Connecticut on Thursday, Friday and Saturday nights. What a charming place which will be known to you all from the Julia Roberts film Mystic Pizza. We explored the historic seaport which is a bit like Greenwich with the Cutty Sark – i.e. they have four tall ships which are preserved complete with rigging and sails. Men and women were climbing up and furling and unfurling these sails whilst singing shanties at the same time. There were also historic buildings creating what the dockyard would have been like in the middle of the nineteenth century. Sounds naff but it was well done.

After all that maritime information, we wanted to whet our whistles so we cycled on into town and found a great place – Red 36 in the modern harbour. Saturday night, sun setting, yachts in the harbour and most importantly yachties getting drunk – completely perfect. We had a couple of beers and some delicious lobster fritters to take the edge off. Cycled back – all uphill, but worth it.

Sunday, we left Mystic and headed into Rhode Island. We have done two things in this tiny, tiny state – the smallest for you geographers out there – Providence the capital and Newport home of the Americas Cup. Matt will tell you about Newport next week so here are the highlights of Providence.

Everywhere we went we could see Roger Williams this, Roger Williams that and we sadly had absolutely no idea who this man was. We now feel terrible for our ignorance as he is clearly a bit of a good egg!

British born he came to Massachusetts in 1631 but quickly fell foul of everyone as he disputed the closeness of the church and the state and believed that charters should not be used to take land off Native Americans. Way too forward thinking for those times – so to cut a long story short he founded a new colony in Providence. His ideas of the church not being part of the state apparatus are the basis for what Jefferson enshrined in the US constitution over a hundred years later. So, he was a complete visionary. Women too were given land in the new colony – so a bit of a hero it seems.

Aside from Roger, Providence had wonderful buildings to wander around. We did a self-guided walking tour which also took in Brown University which is an Ivy League one and the capitol building, but called the State House in Rhode Island. As ever one minute we were walking in streets of historic buildings, all built of timber, painted different colours – charming and elegant – then quite quickly we were back into modern day America and some pretty run-down neighbourhoods. Interesting that even in a state with only one million people there seems to still be such inequality.

We had a wonderful week. Thank you to Michelle and John. Great to see Sarah and Phil and thank you for letting us gate crash your trip. We have survived low bridges, late night trains and our first encounter with New York City this trip – onward and upward to Boston and Jenny and Martin’s arrival.
A x