February 21, 2016

February 21, 2016

Our first stop this morning was on the north shore of central Long Island at the Sagamore Hill National Historic Site.  This was the long time home of Theodore Roosevelt and the summer White House during his time as President.  We arrive early to ensure we get a ticket for the first guided tour of the day.  We have an hour to kill and we walk the grounds and read the many storyboards.  The house is located on a scenic hill overlooking Cold Harbor and Oyster Bay.

Dodging dozens of cyclists, we meet our guide at the front door and are escorted in the main floor of this 14,000 square foot mansion.  The main level is very cool and so TR.  The floor is covered with animal skins, the wall loaded with trophy heads, and every nook and cranny filled with bronze statues and awesome gifts from international VIPs.  TR was an avid outdoorsman, big game hunter, and world traveler.  The guide was a wealth of knowledge spieling off facts from any artifact we pointed to. The second and third floors were the complete opposite, just ordinary living spaces for a large family.

After the house tour, we run through the Theodore Roosevelt Museum.  It gives a good overview of his life.  We breezed through it because we have seen it before at other TR venues.  Aimee still likes it, because she loves reading about people’s lives.  The one thing that popped out at us was the number of early deaths in his family.  His first wife during labor, his mother from Typhus, and several sons during WWI and II.  It reminded us of our era’s Kennedy Curse.

From Sagamore Hill we drove across Long Island to its southern shore, where we take a causeway and two bridges to arrive at Fire Island National Seashore.  This barrier island is not much more than a thin strip of sand.  We park and then stroll a boardwalk leading to its lighthouse.  Aimee and I are very surprised how popular this area is with New Yorkers in the winter.  Half are climbing the lighthouse and the rest are walking the beach.

On the way back to JFK airport we make a short detour to Flushing Meadows Park.  This park was the host of two World's Fairs.  During the 1964 event, a huge stainless steel globe was erected. Called the Unisphere, it recently starred in the first Men in Black movie.