A fortuitous weekend on the beach

This Sunday, Delta and I will be doing the 53 mile Harbours Bike Ride along the north shore of Long Island. I have to admit, when we signed up for it two months ago, it seemed a ride in the distant future, as though we'd never have to actually deal with it in reality. Now, just three days away, it seems (rather differently), quite a daunting prospect.

Last weekend, while Delta and I were preparing for the ride, for the first time we focused on it's start time.
"8.30 am!" I exclaimed, "there's no way we can get all the way out to Brentwood by 8.30!" It'll mean waking up at 5 at least!"
As you might guess, we don't do waking up at 5.
"You think we should spend the night there somewhere closeby?" Delta asked.

So we researched places to stay nearby, but everything was too expensive, or more than we wanted to pay anyway. I was just about to get disheartened, when Delta suggested, "hey, we have all this camping equipment now, why don't we just see if there's a campground somewhere we can do spend the night there?"
I hadn't thought of that, and it struck me as a rather brilliant idea. D'oh. Why not.

And after a bit of nifty googling, I came across the Hekscher State Park, which as it turns out is the perfect campground for us and just twenty minutes from the ride starting point. It even had a beach, so we might just be able to combine some fine photography into the weekend. Just took a second to book ourselves a campsite, and all of a sudden, here we are, our first camping weekend of the summer. Who woulda' thunk.

So all of a sudden, without much forethought, here's our plan for the weekend:
- A walk in the woods
- An evening on the beach
- A night under the stars
- And that 53 mile bike ride. Sigh.