Pictures 1 Montack Light House
2 Shinnecock Canal
We had no idea where we were going to camp for the night at this time. We should be around the Shinnecock Canal. We were about 70 miles behind. We could not travel in the dark with no lights on Rays Columbia .We figured we would have to find a place near Southhamton. We temporally took a side road off Rt. 27 and searched for an unused dirt road. After about an hour we found a road more like a path it didn’t look like it was somebody’s drive way at least. We followed it about a 150 ft or so it gradually opened up to a field. We could not ride our bikes, as it was too sandy it was getting too dark to go much further so we crossed the field and pushed our bikes about 50 ft further just to be off the road. It was sandy but dry. Ray took the big bag off the back of his bike and this was a large about 8 by 8 ft tablecloth. It was made of plastic so I guess it was waterproof. It was kind of messy getting what else that was in his saddlebags out and it was kind of hard to figure out what was edible and what was not. Ray’s Vienna Sausages were pretty good the only problem was those little cans are hard to open without a can opener. The only knife we had was my old army knife, and that thing was 10 inches long that is not a easy thing to do with a knife that size in the dark.
I’m starving to death,” Ray said.
I found my flashlight. Then I took a walk down the path looking for a rock. What kind of place is this that doesn’t even have a rock? I found a piece of cement or something and Ray bashed the cans until he got a hole big enough to get those little sausages, I had a couple cupcakes and some margarine on a chunk of bread.
“If we had only thought of bringing silver ware things would be a hell of a lot easier.” I said.
Ray somehow put up that stupid flowery tablecloth. He tied the four corners with string.
“That’s lovely,” I said to Ray after he finished fooling with (the tent) it seemed to be overly dark there should be streetlights at least.
Ray was eating donuts for at least an hour. I couldn’t sleep. Ray never has that problem he dozed off about 11:00 clock, I lay there wondering what comes next. About an hour later Ray is thrashing around and mumbling something.
“What’s the matter now!…..” I said
“I have to go..go …where you know.” he said.
“Just go in the bushes…”
I can”t do that in the bushes…”
“How were you planning to go before we went on this trip……”
I tried to not think about it ….I guess ….I thought I would go in a gas station…..”
“In the middle of the night?”
“Your right that’s stupid.”
“Well right. I’ll take a walk up the trail a bit and find a spot….”
“Well go already I aint to keen on laying hear alone in God knows where. Take a good flashlight and hurry back,”
I did not like this at all but I kept track of the time it was 10 minutes that should be long enough I got up and just then I saw t he headlights of a car coming through the trees. However the lights were coming from the direction we had been going in and it sounded like more than one car.
“I.” yelled to Ray “get back here.”
The lights were getting brighter.
“Come on, COME ON!” I said
My flash light rolled away I cant find the path,…
”That’s great,” I said. “the only flash light that we have that’s any good.”
I am going to take off 1 of my fender rocket lights and hold it up its not very bright but I thought Ray might be able to see it through the brush. I held it up high enough to get over the low brush the…rocket light was yellow it would not show up to far. The only other light we had was my floodlight, headlight
Ray said to “loud” “I can see it!” As he thrashed through the bushes .
The two cars kept coming there was apparently a turn around in the back of the house in the middle of the garden. Apparently there was a house a couple hundred feet from our camp. It was after 1 o’clock I doubted if they would go out in the back yard that late. Ray said he was pretty sure he could find the flashlight when it gets lighter.
That was the least of our worries I doubted that.
When it got light enough we made tracks out of there. We were back on good old Rt. 27
About a half hour later, of course starving to death, I had a cupcake in my mouth it was kind of mucky. Ray seemed to have lost his taste for his sausages. We saw no diners or a truck stop for about another 5 miles. About 9 o’clock we saw what looked like a diner. There was a half lit sign that said “E D ODE HS OOD.” We hoped it said food. We chained our bikes to a post, and went inside there was 3 or4 people inside you could not tell if they were customers or workers. We sat at the table closest to the door; there was a long dead lobster a huge one it looked as if it had been there 20 years. It was on the divider that separated the door from the tables, other than a fish net hanging behind the counter it looked like the one the lobster got caught in. We couldn’t tell if the waitress was a man or woman not that it mattered Both of us ordered eggs and sausages toast that cost us $ 1.25 each $.25 extra for home fries. That was not to bad we both had about $10.00 each when we left. Actually I had $4.00 more hid in the lining of my seat.
We did not stray from Rte 27. we stopped before noon under a couple of big elm trees for a rest we both fell asleep. About an hour later something woke me, I don’t sleep as deep as Ray does, I sort of opened 1 eye and black police car just made a
U turn and stopped across from where we were sleeping. We thought we were in some kind of problem but he just asked where we were going. Montauk I replied I don’t know what else I told him. I said just a trip to see things we couldn’t do on a summer vacation. I couldn’t think what else to say,,, He just said to take it easy. Don’t get lost!
After he left Ray said we should have told him we just camp in peoples back yards or in there gardens. By my Stewart Warner odometer we have only gone 64 miles. The police car was black 51 Ford with 2 red bubble lights. We were finally on the road again we had about 50 miles to go to Montauk. We took our time and got to the park on the Montauk Point about 5 o’clock. Our hunger pangs were keeping us from what we planned on doing here. But some what worse than that, Rays pants were so stiff he couldn’t pedal any more. We found a marshy inlet that went under the road about 3 miles from Hither Hills Park. This was just out of the park, we made sure no cars were coming then we hid the bikes another 50 ft up the stream, which was about 6 or 7 ft wide maybe 2 ft deep. Without looking to see if anyone could see us Ray divested himself of his pants. His leg was real purple. He scrubbed his pants with some sand and cattail leaves. It didn’t seem to have much effect.
I think he will apply to the circus as the 1/2 man 1/2 grape monster. This is not funny said Ray. It was even less funny when he tried to get the soaked heavy denims back on.
“I can’t get them back on.” Ray exclaimed
I thought it was funny anyway as I started on the way back to the road.
“Hay don’t leave”
He finally got them on most of the way. It must have felt horrible; he was really walking like he crapped himself. We realized we couldn’t camp in Hither Hills Park; for one thing you had to have a permit and a tent or something for a base. We finally found a store a place to buy some food.
We had no stove so hot dogs were out. We did buy about 2 1/2 lbs of cold cuts a loaf of bread a half lb of butter and a pie of course a couple sodas. We spent between the two of us about $8.00. To face the next day 1 had about $5.00 and Ray had about $4.00. How far this would take us we had no clue at all. We found a dirt road of sorts about 2/1/2 miles from Hither Hills Park. We could pedal our bikes the first 150 ft after that you had to get off and push. We were trying to find the safest place and also the most comfortable spot. The entire area was soft white sand we would get off our bikes, lie on the sand and see how it rated. The further you went in the whiter and softer the sand became. There seemed to be more tracks of dune buggies ( I don’t think any car could make it more than 20 ft .) I don’t think they were called dune buggies back then.
There were tracks everywhere some tracks were smaller possibly trucks or 4 wheel drive jeeps or motorcycles. We found a nice stand of pines that seemed just right. We had our camp set up just the way we liked it. It was near dark when we finished our “Supper” . With the scent of pine needles and the soft sand, we fell asleep with little thought of all the stupid things we did that day
Some where around midnight I woke up and put new batteries in all the flash lights. Except for a real dim glow in the west it was pitch black. The only redeeming thing was every 30 seconds there was a flash in the east. We figured that must be the lighthouse light as that was about 4 miles to the east. I guess both of us gave up sleeping for a while it must have been cloudy, as we couldn’t stars.
“Lets take a walk down one of the buggy tracks.” said Ray. “and see if it leads anywhere.”
“We can hardly see anything.” I said, “If we just stay in the car tracks we can’t get lost.”
I didn’t like that idea at all. But what the heck my Incoblock said it was 12:30 there sure didn’t seem anyone would be stupid enough to drive around in this quick sand in the middle of the night…. We covered the bikes around with the tablecloth and then covered that with pine branches. The spot we were camping on was about 6 ft higher than the road, you would nearly have to walk up to it to see it. We set off to the North and followed the deeper tracks. We took 3 flashlights 2 with new batteries (see by now) we new what we were doing. We would flash one of them every 10 ft or so to make sure we followed the right tracks. There were no landmarks to go by. The tracks wound around the pine trees they all looked alike in the dark. The trees suddenly seemed Alien to us. When we turned on the flashlights along the way and could make out the trees as well as the tire tracks every thing looked wrong. The road (trails) criss-crossed back and forth over the main trail, Now we were not sure we were even on the main trail were our bikes should be. We went a few hundred more feet and got back to the main highway, so we passed the bikes back there somewhere. We went back and retraced the main highway to where we started. There was only that one road that led back to ware our bikes should have been. We knew we couldn’t be more than 300 ft from the main road. We criss crossed back and forth. Where the hell did those dumb bikes get to?
If I didn’t know better I would swear we never were in this place. We knew where Rte 27 was, that was in the same place. We wracked our brain trying to remember something about the spot where we left them. We new it was well camouflaged that sure didn’t help us. About 2:30 we gave up, we both were in tears now. How are we going to explain this to anyone out here? We felt like complete asses, so we sat on the edge of the pines trying to imagine what comes next.
Well I guess things have to improve what else can happen? Just then I felt a drop of rain. No it can’t rain! It started to drizzle, we started to get wet but I guess the bikes are warm and cozy beneath that waterproof tablecloth. We might better go back in the pines the bigger trees usually stayed pretty dry right underneath for awhile. I went up the 3 ft bank from the trail to get to a dryer area. I went about 25 feet and tripped over a piece of iron and went ass over head ( one of my fathers favorite sayings) My hand went through the spokes on the front wheel, I could not pull my hand out. We were in total darkness it would be a good trick if you had a light with you. Ray fumbled around trying to bend the spokes by force. To pull 3 at once is a feat, if we could only see a little. All our batteries were now dead except the spotlight in front , the thing that was bright enough but it was now focused on a pine tree about 200 ft away. That did nothing to let us see what we were trying to do.
“We need a big screw driver,” said Ray.
“I have that big army knife,” I said. “that would probably work.”
Where is it?”
“In the tank,” I replied.
“How do we get in the tank?”
“With a key.” I answered. “that is in the tank so I won’t lose it. Get it open however you can.”
Ray pried the tank open with a can opener. But we still could not see. The two bikes were still stuck together.
“Wait a minute.” I said
I noticed the tablecloth was white on the bottom, if we hang it up on a branch and turn the spot light on it, it should reflect back to where. I guess that was the only smart thing we did on that trip. The front wheel lost 2 spokes and 2 others were pulled back fairly strait. We had to ruin 2 more spokes on Ray’s rear wheel. It took us about an hour to fix the bikes and tie things down. We felt like a rag tag hobo outfit when we got to the Sunrise Hwy, Rte 27. We must have lowered property values were ever we stopped. We were pooped. We sat on our bikes trying to decide to turn left and go the rest of the way to Montauk Point or turn right and head for home. We both really wanted to turn right. That would be disappointing to others and we probably be branded as wimps. So we left and continued on to Montauk about another 7 or 8 miles. We stopped and had a breakfast 4 eggs each toast and coffee and both of us grabbed 2 big donuts. We spent another $2.50 each. After this meal Ray had $2.00 and I had the $4,00 hid under the seat. We took a ride down to where there were docks. Just to see what they were catching. We found a few docks that had mostly bluefish. Several docks from there was a boat that had brought in several tiger sharks. It was about 11:00 am when we headed for home. About 2 hours later we reached East Hampton it was a relief to get back to familiar territory. We arrived back at the gas station in Riverhead at about 2:30.
I don’t who was in worse shape us or the bikes. Rays Columbia lost the complete front headlight and his chain guard was wiped out as was half the back fender. The bike had a lost its look, of course, it was full of mud and sand, was missing 7 spokes, and 4 others repaired. My Roadmaster was missing 4 spokes, 2 rear taillights and the horn shorted out. The sand and mud did the Roadmaster no fevers. It looked like we lost a country road race. Besides being filthy dirty and all my clothes smelled like a barn every thing we wore was still wet. Other than Ray trying to find a job, other than 1/2 purple monster in a circus, we don’t know where we will go from here……
Bill Reeves 10/11/10
FUTURE: SOUND BANKS DRIVE IN FUN
