We Schauberts like New York City. By “like New York City” I don’t mean we went there once as senior love birds in high school. Other than our home towns (Salem, St. Louis, Joplin, Dearborn), we’ve probably stayed in New York more than any other city. Last summer we had the privilege of staying on Long Island with our friends the Smiths and visiting Manhattan twice as bookends to a relaxing week on the river. Kiddo took most of these pictures. Unfortunately I can’t watermark them without photoshop which only existed on my crashed computer, so whatevs.

Instead of giving you some lame touristy-hollowood pictures like you’ve already seen:

I want to share the quaint, small-town feel of the part of Long Island where we stayed.

Also a random seal:

First stop was a burger joint called the Riverhead Grill:

Which was built with an old passenger car (subway car?) as the main room:

Retro, cozy and sociable. The kind of place you wouldn’t mind sitting for awhile, if given the time:

Kiddo has developed this fascination with photographing my food every. single. place. we. go. Seriously. Without fail.

See? Here’s a pile of onion rings:

I don’t mind. Seriously, I don’t mind at all–it endears me to her, but I don’t get it either.

Like when am I gonna use a shot like the following?

I mean, yeah, we’re a digital generation and now my kids will know the precise moment when my body began its slow decay into heart-attackville, but other than that, who wants to watch my Angelina Jolie-lips doing a Jaws attack on fried Vidalia?

(I think it’s the expressions. I make weird faces when I eat).

Anyway, there you go. Onion ring.

We walked down the street:

Cut into an alley:

And ended up in this park/pier thing with neat wooden sculptures of owls and Lady Liberty. I took the opportunity to be a poser:

And then there were birds. Not like Hitchcock. More like Bird Lady With The Cart from Home Alone II: Lost in New York:

Then, of course, this happened:

If you check again, you’ll see why me and dress shoes don’t get along.

Then we ended up in one of the antique stores. Don’t remember the name of the joint, but here’s some of the awesome stuff we found:

Without messing with my friend’s privacy, here’s the river near his house:

Me & Kiddo on the river:

And since there’s a bunch of fantasy nerds on here, here’s a picture of me picking up a random house:

Which is funny because if you read that last sentence wrong, it may have looked like the publisher Random House picked me up. False, unfortunately, but hey… a guy can dream.

In short, there were antique stores that felt the same as Southwest Missouri. There was a river, although much colder than Current or Shoal. There was a burger joint and some old-school buildings.

Reminds me of Salem, Illinois. Only… well… New York.