“Montauk in February, brilliant, Joel.” – Jim Carey, Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind

This weekend, my friend Jenn and I went on a day trip (ambitious? yes) to Montauk - Manhattan to Montauk via Southampton, where we picked up our car. (Special thanks to Ms. Jenn Bee for some of these photos!)

We ate pie in the car from Brieremere Farms in Riverhead, NY

And the pups wanted in on the action

Dixie perfected the art of car sleeping the last leg to Montauk

We snuck the pups into Montauk Point Lighthouse (the 4th oldest working lighthouse in the US)

Dixie tried lobster at Duryea’s Lobster Deck and seemed to give it two paws up (as evidenced by major tongue slurpage)

After serious searching, we found the Montauk train station

Both Jenn and I are big fans of the movie “Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind” and we wanted to stand on the platform. Success! 

How happy is the blameless vestal’s lot! / The world forgetting, by the world forgot / Eternal sunshine of the spotless mind! / Each pray’r accepted, and each wish resign’d. – Alexander Pope’s poem Eloisa to Abelard

We stopped at our friend’s dance party for the Gay Center in East Hampton, where there were beautiful men who couldn’t care less about us in that way but looooved Dixie and Bella

It was a fundraiser set up on the patio of this amazing funky house by the beach.

We took the pups down to see the Atlantic Ocean at Two Mile Hollow Beach in East Hampton. I was planning just to let Dixie check it out a bit…

But the ocean had other plans and came outta nowhere. Ack. Suddenly both she and I were covered in sand and ocean water. Fail!

I was sad she was all dirty, but Dixie was loving every minute of it.

To get back at her, I gave her a mohawk. Naturally.

We missed the next to last train out of Southampton, but figured no sweat. We’ll take the last train. But the last train never came. Turns out the poor wording on the LIRR schedule was trying to tell us it didn’t run on Saturday. As Jenn said, if two people with four college degrees between us can’t catch that, who can?

With all hotels booked, the last Jitney bus full, and no train ’til 7AM, we found ourselves stuck sitting on the curb like hobos hanging out with all of the drivers waiting to be summoned to pick up swanky Southamptonites. This was shortly before we shoved our legs into our dog’s carriers and wrapped our boddies in sweatshirts to work as a mosquito net. I tried to make the most of it by eating more pie…

Luckily a fabulous friend came and rescued us and let both of us (and our pups) sleep on an air mattress at his place. Dixie and Bella thought it was the world’s most awesome slumber party. And Jenn celebrated by eating the last of the blueberry pie, which sans refrigeration managed to follow us through our entire journey that day.

After a long 36+ hour adventure, Dixie was zonked for most of our final leg of LIRR travels.

She woke up though as I gathered up our stuff as we grew closer to Penn Station. We arrived back into the city around 2:30 yesterday, and couldn’t be more excited to be back and to have slept in our own beds. Can you say no more last trains???

Joel: I really should go! I’ve gotta catch my ride.
Clementine: So go.
Joel: I did. I thought maybe you were a nut… but you were exciting.
Clementine: I wish you had stayed.
Joel: I wish I had stayed too. NOW I wish I had stayed. I wish I had done a lot of things. I wish I had… I wish I had stayed. I do.
Clementine: Well I came back downstairs and you were gone!
Joel: I walked out, I walked out the door!
Clementine: Why?
Joel: I don’t know. I felt like I was a scared little kid, I was like… it was above my head, I don’t know.
Clementine: You were scared?
Joel: Yeah. I thought you knew that about me. I ran back to the bonfire, trying to outrun my humiliation.
Clementine: Was it something I said?
Joel: Yeah, you said “so go.” With such disdain, you know?
Clementine: Oh, I’m sorry.
Joel: It’s okay.
Clementine: Joely? What if you stayed this time?
Joel: I walked out the door. There’s no memory left.
Clementine: Come back and make up a good-bye at least. Let’s pretend we had one.
Clementine: Bye Joel.
Joel: I love you…
Clementine: Meet me… in Montauk…
- Eternal Sunshine of the Spotless Mind