A Cross Country Trip – Fire Island and Back to Eugene Thru Canada
Beach on Fire Island
It was
July and Cyndi and I had arrived at my parents house in Huntington Station
on Long Island. Long Island can get quite humid and it can be quite
oppressive at times in the summer and it was one of those times.
Coming downstairs one morning Cyndi informed me that the humidity was
awful and asked how could I live in a place like this? My initial
thought was “It's not like I had a choice. Besides, this
was all I had ever known and it's not like this all the time.”
Cyndi grew up in the Chicago area and they have humidity too, but it
does not get as intense as it does on the east coast. What we used
to do on days like this was head to the beach. It would be less hot,
generally with a breeze, and we could swim. So, we packed up and
headed out to the beach. Since we were on an island we had a choice
between the north shore beaches or the south shore beaches. I
decided to go to the ocean (south shore) side of the Island,
specifically Fire Island. The two main ocean beaches closest to my
parents' home were Fire Island and Jones Beach. Both were white sand
beaches. They are actually on sandbars and they had waves that broke
on the shore. The waves could sometimes be quite big. Fire Island
was further east than Jones and it usually had the larger waves which
was one reason I liked to go there. We drove to Fire Island and
found the waves were big that day. Cyndi was a good swimmer and
liked to swim, but Cyndi had never been swimming in sizable waves. I
gave her a quick lesson on how to do it. I explained how you needed
to get beyond the break-line and to do that you would need to rush in
and dive into the wave that was coming at you. It would look scary
but if you just dive into it you will come out the other side. What
I failed to communicate was that since the waves were large you may
need to dive into the next wave or two as well before you get past
the break-line. The waves at Fire Island can come very rapidly. So
we ran into the water and dove into the first wave after which Cyndi
stood up with her back to the waves and started to pull the hair back
from her face. We were not yet beyond the break-line and the next
wave was about to hit. Before I could get her attention the wave
broke right on her and sent her crashing into the surf where she was
bounced around until she was delivered to the shore where she could
safely stand up. It's scary the first time that happens to you
because you don't realize you are being driven back to the shore and
when the wave is finished bouncing you around you will be out of
harm's way and able to safely stand up. I had, of course, dove into
the next wave and avoided Cyndi's fate after which I looked back and
saw Cyndi on the shore. Realizing what happened, I rode the next
wave in. I tried explaining to Cyndi that she needed to dive into
any wave that was breaking in front of her. I said “Lets try
again”. Cyndi looked at me like I was a lunatic and firmly
indicated there was no way she was going to attempt this a second
time. I knew she would love it once she successfully made it out.
At this point there was no convincing her, but I do not give up
easily. I had us pack up all our stuff and head back to the car. I
drove over to Jones Beach. The waves at Jones were still good sized
but a little smaller and a little slower than Fire Island's. With a
lot of coaxing I finally got Cyndi to try it again and this time she
made it. She loved it. In fact, she stayed in a long time and I had
trouble convincing her to get out of the water when it was time to
leave.
After a
few days it was time to head back to Eugene. Andy and Connie picked
us up at my parents' house. My Mom gave us all a bunch of these
Groucho Marx glasses (black rims with big nose and mustache) that we
had been fooling around with. We thought we'd use them to entertain
ourselves with on the long ride back. We first tried putting them on
in traffic on the Long Island Expressway (LIE) but no one other than
a couple of kids would even acknowledge us. So next we took to
putting them on when we drove through toll booths thinking we might
get a reaction from the toll collector. Nope, 3 toll booths
absolutely no reaction from any of the toll collectors. I don't even
think they noticed. I mean we were in a Volkswagen Micro Bus with
lots of windows and pretty much at eye level with these people and
nothing. Maybe it's common for New Yorkers to look like Groucho....
We
decided to go back through Canada, camping along the way, with plans
to stop at Banff National Park in the Canadian Rockies. We headed up
the New York Thruway towards Utica and then North crossing into
Canada. We then turned West along the North side of Lake Ontario.
We traveled around Lake Huron and eventually got on highway 17 to the
North side of Lake Superior, the largest of the Great Lakes. We
found a place to camp on Lake Superior. We set up our tents and went
for a swim. Superior is a beautiful clean lake. You can clearly see
the bottom even after you are out in the water over your head. The
water was cool but refreshing. After our swim we started up a fire
to cook up some dinner. The sun was getting lower in the horizon as
it was getting towards dusk. Out came the mosquitoes. Not just a
few but a whole battalion. Thousands of mosquitoes who evidently
hadn't eaten all day. They took one look at us and it was
Thanksgiving in July. I put on some long pants, a shirt, and I
pulled out the Cutter's - you know that stuff that's supposed to kill
mosquitoes? I put a couple of drops on my wrist and immediately a
mosquito landed right in the middle of one of the Cutter's drops and
proceeded to stick it's proboscis into me and suck out some blood. I
knew we were in trouble. These mosquitoes were hungry, Donner Party
hungry! Those dang mosquitoes swarmed all over us and they were not
going to be stopped. They had us outnumbered and on the run. We
were all swiping madly at out attackers. We all made a bee-line for
our tents, zipping them closed. Cyndi and I killed the ones that
managed to fly in with us. I am usually not a big target for
mosquitoes but I was bitten multiple times. Cyndi had many more.
Her back was covered with bites. She had me count the bytes on her
back. I counted well over 50 before I stopped. Our choices were
limited. We had three options: go back to the car, jump back in the
lake, or stay in the tent until dark. We stayed in the tent. Once
it was dark Andy and Connie crawled out of their tent and re-started
the fire. We eventually joined them. We all ate some dinner and sat
around the fire for awhile before retiring for the evening. The next
morning we checked out the mosquito situation before venturing out.
It appeared the mosquitoes were gone but not wanting to take any
chances we had a quick breakfast and headed out to get away from the
great Lake Superior Mosquito Army while the getting was good.
By the
afternoon we reached Banff National Park. Banff is a stunningly
beautiful park especially the picturesque Lake Louise. We spent a day
there and then headed out the West side of the park. I don't
remember if we were in Glacier National Park or just on the other
side of it when we stopped to swim in a river that paralleled the
highway we were on. It was a fast moving river. Andy found a bend
in the river and tied a rope to a tree and then tied a log to the
other end of the rope and tossed the log into the river. Because of
the bend the log floated out towards the middle of the river. We
then all went upstream and took turns jumping in. The river was very
cold, the coldest water I have ever been in and I've been swimming in
some pretty cold mountain lakes as well as the Pacific Ocean up in
Oregon. As soon as you jumped in the cold temperature of the water
shocked you but there was no time to waste as the river's current
immediately took you swiftly down stream. You had to start angling
towards that rope with the log attached to it. Once you caught the
rope you could pull yourself back out of the water. Once you were
out your whole body would tingle for like 5 minutes. It was
exhilarating. We each did it a couple of times. Looking back we
were probably foolish taking a chance jumping into a river moving
that quickly but we all did, we all caught the rope, and we all lived
to tell about it. It remains a vivid memory to this day.
Andy and me
After
that we headed south to the States attempting to cross the border
into central Washington. We had some pot with us (for medicinal
purposes only of course). Entering into Canada Andy had hidden all
our stash in the car. He had taken off one of the inside panels and
then re-attached it. When we entered Canada their border agents just
asked us a couple of questions and waved us through. Entering into
the US was a bit different, after all, we weren't just visitors, we
were citizens with all those rights and freedoms our country is
famous for. Of course we were pulled over. Rights or no rights,
young people with long hair were potential trouble. The agents
checked all our ID's and then proceeded to go through our stuff
(ducking down out of site only works for so long...). All our
“stuff” was hidden again. My things were packed in a standard
packing cardboard box (I like to travel in style). It was a step up
from my usual travel bag, a pillow case. As the agent started going
through our things I remembered that I forgot about my pot pipe. It
was still at the bottom of my box. The agent got to my box and stuck
his big hands into it and felt all around, pulling a few things out.
It was quite the anxious moment as I stood there helpless just hoping
he would not find it. And praise be, somehow he missed it. We were
granted entry back into our own country. From there we had an easy
and pleasant ride back home to Eugene. This concludes my 3 part
story of my trip across the country with Cyndi in the summer of 1975.
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