Last week, Laurie and I explored the North Fork of Long Island. We had a blast visiting 12 of the region’s many wineries, relaxing on the beach, watching the sunset, and taking in some other scenic points that you’ll see below. Together we took over 600 pictures over the course of four days. (Thankfully, I’ve picked out just the greatest hits.)


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Today I ran the New Jersey Marathon, my fourth marathon overall but my first time running a marathon that wasn’t the ING New York City Marathon. It was something I was nervous about. I had no idea how I would respond running the first half of the race through some random Jersey towns instead of across the Verrazano Bridge and Fourth Avenue and the ( Read more... )

Today is the last full day of Winter 2011, and countless millions of people in the New York metropolitan area are extremely thankful. Be it global warming, global cooling, or the universe just being weird, New York City had about a marathon stretch from Christmas to about Valentine's Day where it never seemed to stop snowing and sleeting ( Read more... )

When Laurie and I were on the Wine Bus in the New Paltz-Poughkeepsie area in September (scroll down a couple of posts to see the blog about that), we kept noticing signs for something called "Walkway Over the Hudson." The Mid-Hudson region is beautiful, so this intrigued us. Sure enough, as the bus crossed the Mid-Hudson Bridge into Poughkeepsie, ( Read more... )

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After driving the upstate New York's Taconic State Parkway in the height of fall foliage season a few weekends ago, I think I have a new favorite road.


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Anyone who knows me well knows that I have the alcohol tolerance of...well, I can't think of anyone or anything that has as little alcohol tolerance as I do. One strong mixed drink and I'm more than tipsy; two and I'm pretty much useless. The good news is that I seem to deal with wine okay. And that's a good thing, because (1) red wine is happy, ( Read more... )

The long-awaited (I'm talking decades) Brooklyn Bridge Park finally opened to the public on March 22, 2010. I visited the park shortly after it opened, at the very start of spring, and already was impressed -- and was curious to see what a summer of growth would bring ( Read more... )

Did all of the carnival games and corny rides and fried Elvises from my Seaside Heights post give you the willies? If so, I can't blame you. The good news is, driving another 10 minutes south will take you to Island Beach State Park, an almost ten-mile-long barrier island that's the polar opposite: totally uncommercial, almost woodsy, and except ( Read more... )

Now that Halloween weekend is upon us, we can probably close the book on summer 2010 once and for all. This was a crazy summer. For one thing, it was relentlessly hot, at least in the New York City area. For another, people inexplicably became obsessed with the MTV series Jersey Shore. It makes me sad that because of this show, people are going to ( Read more... )