Weekending it

Saturday the plan was to get on the Long Island Rail Road and join a few of my friends from grad school at Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay.  Despite having lived here for six years, it was my first time to Long Island.  It's quite gorgeous...made me feel very "Great Gatsby."

Sagamore Hill is the home and museum of Theodore "Teddy" Roosevelt.  It is a historic house and grounds, with a museum, trails, and a little beach.  We got there at noon and were surprised to discover all the house tours were sold-out until the 4 pm slot. We decided that since we had made the journey out there we might as well stay for the tour.

To kill the four hours we had before the tour, we took our picnic lunch to the beach by the bay.  The weather was still lovely and summery with some big heat from the sun.

The marshy area out to the beach was filled with oysters...mostly all dead.  But wow!

Rather than smooth sand it was a pebble beach.  Dan and I skipped rocks and I collected a few shells.

After we tired of the beach we went to the museum and learned all about Teddy.  Something I didn't know was that Teddy was Governor of New York but some politicians didn't like how progressive he was so as a way of booting him out of office they nominated him for the Vice Presidency under McKinley, because that position had little influence.  Well, after McKinley was assassinated, Roosevelt became President.  That's a pretty big backfire. 

For only living to the age of 60, Roosevelt did SO much.  A firecracker, for sure.  Oh, and side note for Jessy and Mandy:  They mentioned that Roosevelt regularly visited with News Boys.  Sadly, no mention of our Cowboy. 

Then we just sat around until tour time.  Dan and I got one of these National Parks Passports which you get stamped at National Park locations.  Seemed like another fun way to document our adventures.  Too bad we didn't have one back during our Philly trip.

At four, we headed to the house for the tour.  Unfortunately, no pictures were allowed inside the house but it was pretty amazing.  Roosevelt died in the house at the age of 60 in 1919.  His wife remained at the residence until her death.  In the 1960s it was taken over by the National Park Service.  This past summer the house reopened to the public following three years worth of restorations.

The house has 23 rooms left relatively untouched with most of the original furnishings, books, animals skin rugs, trophy taxidermy, and other possessions owned by Roosevelt and his family.  Here is a NYT article which includes photos.  

The day ended up being much longer than we had planned but we had a great time.  We got Shake Shack for dinner back in Brooklyn before heading home. 

As for Sunday, no comment.  It was a pretty miserable day for both of us.

And now we are back to another moody Monday.