NYC has been a whole lot of crazy the past month, and I was way overdue for a day outside the city.  I get bonkers when I’m around concrete and people for too long without a complete disconnect from the human race.  The weather was calling for severe thunderstorms to go along with the heat wave and wildfire smoke from Canada we’ve all been breathing for the past week.  But according to the radar, the storms were supposed to roll into Manhattan and the surrounding areas later in the day.  Now, I know never to trust the weather, but I needed to get away for a few hours.

I checked the tide charts, and if we left in an hour, we’d arrive at Sunken Meadow at low tide, when all the little salt marsh and sea creatures would be washed ashore.  We got there at the perfect time. There were thousands, I’d even say millions, of fiddler crabs all over the salt marshes.  The males were waving their big claws to show off for the females and claim their territory.  It was fascinating to see so many of them.

I also saw hermit crabs, a totally different species than the kind the pet shop sold you when you were a kid growing up in the '70s.  There were so many more piping plovers and least terns than the last time we were here.  I could only gather that perhaps some of these were the offspring of the ones being protected inside the roped-off area, as they are both endangered.

As we walked, the sky started to darken, and it began to rain.  I could hear rolling thunder off in the distance, and it was getting closer.  We hastened our pace back to the car, and as we approached the boardwalk area, the lifeguard was shouting that lightning had been spotted.  Suddenly, it started to pour.  The ocean and the beach are so beautiful in stormy weather.  If it hadn’t been for the lightning, I would have stayed and enjoyed the rain.

It was a little after 1 pm, and we were hungry, so we drove to Northport Fish & Lobster.  There’s a small indoor seating area behind the market where you can sit and eat, and they’ll cook anything you want from the case.  Everything is fresh out of the sea.  While we were eating, lightning struck so loudly it shook the building.  I could hear a news reporter on the TV reporting flooding and hazardous conditions and telling people to stay off the roads.  Well, too late now. We were already out.  So we just took our time and hung out for a while.

It was still raining when we left, but we missed the worst of the storm.  Traffic wasn’t the best getting back into Manhattan, but we’re used to traffic anyway and weren’t in a hurry.  It was a really nice day despite the rain, which I rather enjoyed, and we came home with baked clams, clam chowder, and coconut shrimp to make later.

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