East Hampton: Part 1

On Memorial Day, Jim and I decided to go to the Hamptons for the day just for fancy. Neither of us had ever been, and it felt appropriate for the unofficial start of summer. We took the LIRR from Atlantic Terminal and arrived in East Hampton a little more than three hours later. It was my second time riding the LIRR, and I much prefer train travel (or the subway) to driving. There's always something neat to look at out the window, I can read, put my feet up, take a nap — the journey is all part of the adventure.

Despite being us, we didn't have the entire day planned and didn't really know what to expect when we arrived. We picked East Hampton kind of randomly, based on equal parts proximity to the train station and the fact that Martha Stewart has a house there. If it's good enough for Martha, it's good enough for me, and we definitely weren't disappointed. In fact, I loved it from the moment we got off the train, and the day just got better and better.

We made our way down Main Street (yes, it was actually called Main Street), drooling over the property listings in the windows (sample price: $59 million) and then over the actual properties themselves. I've never met a cedar-shingled house that I didn't love, and East Hampton has them in spades. The streets had fairytale names like Pleasant Lane and we walked past some of the most beautiful homes that I've ever seen.

We eventually even made our way to Lily Pond Lane — home of Ms. Stewart herself — where I got as close to her house as I felt I could without jeopardizing any future potential job opportunities at her company. We mostly just walked around and pretended like we actually belonged in East Hampton — maybe we were the rebel children of impossibly wealthy parents — and it was entirely delightful.

We spent some time at the beach and an amazing cemetery (more on those later), and tried to tour a few historical homes/museums but they were closed due to the holiday. We ate burgers on the beach, had ice cream from a shop called "Scoop du Jour," browsed a book store and wondered what it would be like to be rich and buy all of our books at full-price. It was the perfect outside of the city adventure — close enough to do in a day but far enough away to feel like another world.