A couple of months ago, Marcia and I planned a family trip down to the North Fork of Long Island for Memorial Day Weekend with the idea that we’d take Katelin to visit SUNY Purchase and Stony Brook on our way down to see what she thought of them as college prospects. Problem was, we didn’t bother to check Katelin’s schedule at the time, and as it turned out Katelin was on her “spring term” experiential trip over the Memorial Day weekend. But since we had all the travel arrangements made, we decided to go anyway, just to get out of Dodge for a spell, and so we could decide whether we liked Purchase and Stony Brook on Katelin’s behalf. (We felt like Purchase will merit another visit. Stony Brook is a beautiful campus, but it’s so huge, and the thought of having to fight Throgs Neck or Whitestone traffic every time we needed to get her to and from school is something of a deterrent, so we’re kind of luke warm on that one).

We had a lovely visit to the NOFO, spending Sunday with friends Chris (a third-generation North Forker who goes to school with me up here in Albany) and Pat (a long-time friend who had previously travelled to Prague with us a couple of years ago, among other less exotic destinations). We hit half a dozen or so wineries, with lots of insider info and scuttlebutt from Chris, who’s quite the wine expert in general, and particularly well-versed in the North Fork Wineries, having worked in several of them. The consensus faves after extensive tastings were, I think, a Chenin Blanc from Paumanok, a Malbec from Macari, and the Mythology blend from Pindar. We then had a spectacular dinner at the historic Claudio’s in Greenport, a place I remembered from my long-ago days as a junior high school camper at Camp Quinipet on nearly Shelter Island. (The photo to the right is Pat, Marcia and Chris on the patio at Macari).

Marcia and I also shot nine holes of golf on Saturday morning and another nine on Monday afternoon. My total number of holes golfed now is 27. I achieved my first few par scores on Monday (all par threes), and was actually doing pretty good (for my relative lack of experience) until shanking an 11 on the par 4 final hole. A-duh.