To follow up on my last post, this one’s all about the day I made the boyfriend take me (and Misses Loretta the dog) to the beach! The boyfriend isn’t the biggest fan of the beach (even though he grew up in a beach town) and neither is Misses (which is mostly my fault for capsizing a canoe while I was holding her when she was just 3 months old and forever traumatizing her). Me, however, I LOVE the beach. I love swimming in the ocean, I love tanning, I love picnics! Beach over pool any day. I had only been to the beach twice all summer (once at the boyfriend’s little beach town, sans the boyfriend, and then once when we were in Cape Cod), so I was SUPER PUMPED to spend a day lounging by the sea before the summer ended.

We went to Fort Tilden beach, which is my favorite beach in New York City for numerous reasons. It is all the way in the Rockaway’s, on the Atlantic Ocean (Long Beach is only a coupe miles east), and is the furthest beach from Manhattan, still in the city limits (which for some reason makes it at least feel cleaner than say Brighton Beach). It is only accessible via car, bike or bus (the Q22 and the Q35 both go there, and there is apparently a $6 Bushwick Bus now!), which means it is significantly less crowded than other city beaches (which is particularly nice when you want to go topless, which is legal in all NYC beaches and parks, and you don’t have 300 people right on top of you staring at your nipples). It’s also in a park so there are soccer, baseball fields and beautiful old government buildings to look at. The fact that it’s a little tricky to get there (and then once you get there find the actual entrance) makes it all the more fun once you’re there!

Even though the boyfriend was a little weary about the drive/parking/dog situation we wound up having a wonderful (cop and ticket free!) day! (Luckily, Loretta is small and quiet enough to hide in bag and/or under a towel whenever some sort of authority drove by)(and we just got lucky that we didn’t get a ticket for parking in a no parking zone). We all went swimming (even throwing the pup in a couple times), bought some rum punch from some very nice boys from Barbados and had some yummy home made spicy chicken sandwiches! (I also packed pasta salad and roasted potatoes but the sandwiches were more than enough for us). We only left when the sand flies started bite! And now that we know how to get there and how easy and fun it is we’re going try and go at least one more time (even though the summer is already technically over).