On Sunday I took a fancy to driving out to Long Beach, where I had spent many a post-college weekend beach day. We packed up the kids but as we were driving my husband suggested Robert Moses instead and so we changed course. I hadn’t been there in over 15 years since I used to go with my my best friend on the LIRR (and a bus). She would bring lemonade spiked with vodka and it was just us all day talking, laughing, and swimming under the big waves. It was simple and perfect, we had just become friends and were quite inseparable in those days.
Coming back with my three kids in tow and husband, I realized that Robert Moses state park is kind of designed that way. There’s a nice big food station, gift shop, showers, and bathrooms and they are only a short walk from the water. There’s a great playground when the waves get too rough. And a beautiful lighthouse that on Sunday was shrouded in a ghostly fog that made it somewhat mystical.
And as I bit into a crispy (yet chewy) fried clam, I looked at my little family and smiled. It had taken more than an hour to convince my oldest to abandon wave surfing to finally stop and eat. And here we all were, together, abandoning all of our cares and worries to just enjoy each other and the awesome rawness of the giant ocean in all of it’s wild glory.