LONG ISLAND IS HOME TO NUMEROUS ATTRACTIONS TO LURE VISITORS OUT OF NEW YORK CITY.  [ ONCE WE GET THEM HERE, WE TRAP THEM IN THE MURDEROUS TRAFFIC OF THE LONG ISLAND EXPRESSWAY!!! ]

EAB Park, Home of the Atlantic League's Long Island Ducks in Central Islip.  By the way, EAB stands for European-American Bank...not some guy named Eab.  The bank has been acquired by some other bank.  The ball club routinely sells out the 6000-seat stadium.  Maybe the ball club should have acquired the bank.  Someday, they will probably rename the stadium, but, we will probably NOT change the picture.   To hell with banks.

Sagamore Hill in Oyster Bay.  Home of President Theodore Roosevelt.  Republicans always did live well.

The infamous Long Island Expressway at 10:30 on a Sunday.  We considered using a rush hour shot, but then, you couldn't see the pavement! It is not called the "World's Longest Parking Lot" for nothing.

Walt Whitman.  Alleged to have been a famous poet but definitely the inspiration for the name of a large shopping mall in Huntington.

It's an island.  Of course it has beaches.  This one is on Fire Island.

The Bayard Cutting Arboretum in Great River.  None of us know who the hell Bayard Cutting was, either. It is a tribute to the marketing ability of Long Islanders that they can take an area covered by trees, fence off part of it, call it an arboretum, (Latin for "too many friggin' trees") and charge suckers admission to go there.  Particularly impressed are residents of states where the forests tend to burn down every year.

Montauk Point and its lighthouse.  Next stop: Ireland.  For visitors to this site living in the middle of the country, the big blue thing is called the Atlantic Ocean.

The Fire Island Light House.  Once you've seen one lighthouse you've pretty much seen them all.

The baggage retrieval area of Long Island's Islip MacArthur Airport on a busy day.  While difficult to get a non-stop flight to anywhere from Islip, it is still much more convenient than trying to fly out of LaGuardia in New York City.  So many planes are delayed or cancelled at LaGuardia that it is in danger of being reclassified from "an airport" to "a one-star hotel."

A 1931 photo of Mitchell Field, four years after Charles Lindbergh departed from there on his famous solo flight to Paris. The line of airplane hangers [by the blue dot] are still there and are now part of  Nassau Community College.  The IRS' Garden City office is now located near the red dot.  We have a deep-seated suspicion that the GSA allowed the landlord to retain the original heating and air conditioning system when the building was reconfigured for the I.R.S.

Someone's mansion up on the North Shore of Nassau. Must have been a bitch to heat.

The Long Island Game Farm in Manorville.  Great for kids.  Try not to confuse the Petting Zoo with the cougar pit.

The Cradle of Aviation Museum, located in one of the hangers by the blue dot, above.  No jokes, here, the place isn't even supposed to open until later this year.

Old Bethpage Restored Village.  Among other features, it boasts an 1890's baseball field and games between teams who play the game the way it was in the old days... which is to say, pretty much like the Mets are playing it now!

The Peconic River Queen in Riverhead offers excursions between the "forks."  Rumor has it that part of the boat's popularity stems from the bar on board.

The Vanderbilt Museum and Planetarium, located at the  former palatial North Shore estate of the Vanderbilt family.  See earlier comment about Republicans living well.

And, finally, before you get too excited by the marvelous colors of our Autumn foliage, remember, we have to rake them all up!