Trip 46 — Long Island Walk
Day 16: Merrick to Far Rockaway
Friday, 21 November 2025
Today: 30811 steps/23.06 km/14.33 mi/4h 22m
Total: 741472 steps/566.02 km/351.71 mi/99h 54m
"You brought wine?" Debby asks, as I haul it into her house under my upper arm, like a caught football.
"I couldn't show up to dinner without bringing something!"
"You sound just like your father."
It's the highest compliment I can imagine.
It's not the first time I've spent the night at Debby and Steve's place. She's my mother's first cousin, and when I was about eight years old, I had a sleepover at their house in Massachusetts. I spent the whole night playing backgammon on Steve's computer — he was one of the few people I knew who had one.
I don't recall what we ate then, but this time Steve has made clams Posillipo and we get to drink wine. They're fresh littlenecks, and he apologizes for the tiny amount of sand, but it gives them an authentic texture that doesn't bother me. For dessert, there are baked apples, which have long been popular in the family.
I take advantage of the laundry machines, and Debby explains how I can lock the house if I sleep past the time they leave. She instructs me to raid the refrigerator and cabinets if there's anything I want.
The bed has ten pillows. It's soft and warm and so large that the clothes I've folded and placed on one side could well be in a different postal code from the side I sleep on. I wake up early anyway — I have no idea how, after yesterday — and while I'm not a big breakfast eater, Debby prepares the perfect wake-up snack: roasted chestnuts, another family favorite.
With a distance less than half of yesterday's, I have the luxury of walking slower and knowing I'll arrive before dark. I'm faster than yesterday without even trying. I leave Debby and Steve's neighborhood, cross under the Long Island Rail Road tracks at Freeport, and make my way down to Atlantic Avenue in Baldwin.
A sign for Waukena Avenue to the left appears and I abruptly take it to the furthest reaches of this part of Long Island, before it reaches Island Park and Long Beach — those are politically part of Long Island but geographically different landmasses. There are glimpses of tiny marinas: a final nod to seafaring before the big city.
At the junction with Lawson Boulevard, I arrive at the GoStockUp International Market, which specializes in Russian and Eastern European products. I won't want to carry much back to Manhattan, but it's always fun to browse this sort of place.
There doesn't seem to be a public entrance, however. The front is unwelcoming, and at the back I find plastic flaps leading to an indoor stockroom. I've misread the description: It's an online store only, and this is the warehouse. If I want to buy anything, I have to order it first.
It's a happy find, however. One product I constantly seek out is a dark-chocolate cordial filled with cherry liqueur and a pitted cherry. The best go under the label Złota Wiśnia. I used to buy them in Brighton Beach, but they've eluded me on my last few visits. The only place I find them reliably is at a Polish grocery store in Stamford, Connecticut, and I happened upon them in Edinburgh this past spring. I've tried to find them online, but the only source was the Polish Art Center in Michigan, which sells a 2.5-kilogram box for $85 plus shipping.
Well, here they are for $12.80 a pound, and an annoying pop-up (there is no other kind) tells me that I can register for 10 percent off my first order. They'll even send it free within the city.
After a Puerto Rican lunch of mofongo and a canoa, I continue west into the Five Towns, starting with Hewlett and working my way south through Woodmere, Cedarhurst, and Lawrence before reaching Inwood. The Long Island Rail Road stops at each one. The last few towns are particularly Jewish, and they're quiet on this Friday afternoon, with people preparing for the sabbath. I've been here before, when I brought a kishka home from one of the supermarkets.
The southwestern end of Central Avenue has a few synagogues, and people are dressed up and headed to shul. For a moment I consider joining them, but I missed my chance to acquire an appropriate head covering at Cool Kippahs.
I cross the Nassau Expressway. Somewhere, I'm not sure at exactly what point, I reenter New York City into the borough of Queens. There's no welcome back to the city, no fanfare, no signage with the mayor's name — just the customary notices about no right turns on red and a citywide default speed limit of 25 miles per hour. I mainly realize I'm within the city limits because of the bus stops and the parking signs. The buildings are indistinguishable from those of Nassau County a few moments ago.
And it's strange, so strange. This trip has already been surreal: On Election Day I left my apartment for a walk, and I've been in no vehicles, and after just under three weeks I'll be home. Now I'm back in the city, and the city goes about its business — that is one thing I like about cities — and no one can tell, or cares, that I've come here on foot via Orient Point and Montauk.
The fact that I left Montauk just four days ago astounds me. I've done this walk maybe too fast to soak it in at the right pace, and occasionally in segments too long for my feet, but I wouldn't have had it any other way. I'm ready to be done walking, ready to be home, ready to be back with Liz. I'm not even in the mood to finish the last two days, but of course I have to. I could easily take a train home from here. (Though that said, I could pretty easily have taken a train home from anywhere on the island.)
Far Rockaway is culture shock. It's booming with rap, hip-hop, and Latin music around the main square. There's a large fruit stand, the city's answer to the farm stands out on the island. Suddenly I feel conspicuous in this multicultural mix. I haven't seen anything like it on the island, barely remember it. I've been in Far Rockaway before, even walked here from Long Beach, but I am simply not ready for this kind of activity.
It's fitting that my hotel is right next to the terminus of the "A" subway line and also very close to the Far Rockaway station on the Long Island Rail Road, which are themselves about three blocks from each other. It makes for an appropriate bridge between the political Long Island and the city.
The first thing I notice at the front desk of the Hotel Mint JFK Airport is the glass partition separating me from the receptionist. The second is that the minimum reservation is only four hours, which costs $65 from Monday to Thursday and $75 on the weekends. The rate goes up incrementally by the hour until you get to nine. I've booked a full night. The computer isn't working, and it takes the receptionist 15 minutes to check me in, but she's friendly and eventually it does happen.
The room is adequate. There's a faint cigarette smell, the bedspread is nothing anyone would have picked since 1972, and people are having an argument in a room down the corridor, but there's a big TV set and a photo of the Brooklyn Bridge and the bed is comfortable. At first I wanted a room facing the train terminus, but having received one on the other side, I decide maybe it's better to have quiet.
There's only one place to sit down for dinner, and I say that from the snobby perspective of someone used to being served in restaurants. It just isn't the culture to go out to eat much in this area. The Jamaican place a block south and the vaguely Irish place about 15 minutes north are both shut. All but one of the other places are pizza joints and the like, where you order food and bring it home.
That one is a Salvadoran eatery called La Palma. I have fried yucca and their special breaded chicken with salad and rice, along with two Modelo bottles. I don't understand the numbers on the bill at all — it doesn't help that she did the addition by hand and got it wrong — but it's close enough.
I pop into a supermarket for some room snacks: fruit salad, a can of horchata, and a half-bottle of sweet red wine from the Dominican Republic. Its label has a picture of a smiling, shirtless man flexing his overpronounced muscles. I can't not try it, and it tastes exactly at you expect, especially from a plastic cup.
So this is about it. I'm back in New York City, but I'm two boroughs away from finishing the walk. There's still some more land to cover, and tomorrow's segment has a few more family connections.
Go on to day 17
