Long Island encompasses a lot of places I’ve heard of but lack visual and geographic context for: the Hamptons, Gold Coast, Fire Island, Montauk, Sag Harbor, Massapequa, Queens. (I had no idea Brooklyn and Queens are attached to the same piece of land as the Hamptons. I always pictured the Hamptons as a collection of islands like North Carolina’s Outer Banks or something.)

Long Island is about 120 miles long, starting on the west side with Brooklyn and thinning out to a point where Montauk sits in the east. The Hamptons are a collection of towns with the word “Hampton,” in the name (like East Hampton, Bridgehampton, Southampton) clustered on the Montauk side of the island. So I drove through the Hamptons out to the Montauk Point Lighthouse (above, which was closed) before heading back to New York City (so that I could say I’d driven all of Long Island).
The drive was slow, which I guess is a thing on the east side of Long Island given that there’s one main road, and it’s only one lane in each direction. So if you get stuck with a Beamer from Massachusetts who’s trying to get around a minivan from Florida, you’re in for several stressful miles.
Plus it was the end of a weekend that had turned into a three-day, seven-state rainstorm. Even though there wasn’t any more flash flooding after Rhode Island, the heavy rain was constant and the wind was a turn-your-umbrella-inside-out force that combined with the rain to make it unpleasant to be outside. So at the lighthouse I took a few photos, walked to the head of the beach path, then turned around and got back in the car.
Although I’d been excited for The Hamptons! when I planned the trip, by the time I got there I was sort of over it. So I ended up taking half-hearted, nowhere-near-the-action photos like this one (look, it’s East Hampton, established in 1648!) because I didn’t want to deal with rainstorm exploring anymore. (The Hamptons had adorable-yet-modernized, upscale town centers with some fancy-looking boutiques lining the road, and I didn’t even stop the car.)
But I had to stop for lunch! Organic Krush in Amagansett was a bright spot on the Long Island trip, partly because they sold vegan food and partly because it was indoors and dry.
It’s a make-your-own bowl place, so I’m not sure what this is called, but it was tasty!
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