…:: Alex Smirnov ::…

Blog, Photography, Books, Movies, Cooking, Geocaching, Travel and Various Things I Care About (And You Probably Don't)

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Entries Tagged as 'New York'

Canoeing on the Peconic River (Long Island, New York)

August 8th, 2011 · 3 Comments · Adventure, Fun, Geocaching, Kayaking and Canoeing, Long Island, Personal, Photography

One advantage of living on Long Island (and for me personally, advantages of living here are very hard to come by) is the presence of large bodies of water open to kayaking and canoeing. Besides the obvious Long Island Sound and the Great Sound Bay, there are several rivers that can be explored by personal watercraft. One such river, is the Peconic on Eastern Long island. It originates near Brookhaven National Lab and lazily flows east, towards Riverhead and the crotch of Long Island and eventually empties into the Flanders Bay, which is apart of the Peconic Bay. This river has been on my list ever since I moved to Long Island but for variety of reasons (most of them bullshit excuses) never got around to it.

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Bicycling on Wallkill Valley, Shawangunk and Walden Rail Trails

June 14th, 2011 · No Comments · Adventure, Bicycling, Personal, Photography, Travel

The Wallkill Valley, Shawangunk and Walden rail trail (or rather rail trails) span from Walden, NY to Rosendale, NY, roughly in the North-South direction. I am not exactly sure on the whole nomenclature issue but it is very easy to ride all three trails together, in one day and at a very leisurely place. The surface of the trails varies as does the marking. The Walden rail trail is pretty much as good as it gets – of course – depending on your standards. What I mean that it is paved in its entirety, very well marked with stop signs and proper road crossings. And if you start in Walden like we did, slightly downhill. The second part of the ride is for all intents and purposes unmaintained singletrack, followed by riding on roads to the trailhead of the Wallkill Valley Rail Trail on Denniston Road. Wallkill Rail Trail is unpaved, mostly packed dirt and crushed stone, with some patches (mostly around New Paltz, NY) of variously degraded asphalt.

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Doing Fun Things in 2011

March 20th, 2011 · 1 Comment · Bicycling, Miscellaneous, Personal, Travel

Perhaps posting my travel/adventure plans for 2011 will make me more likely to stick to them. And maybe not. Regardless here the first three I am already registered for. More to come later.

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Geocaching in Hubbard County Park (Long Island)

September 23rd, 2009 · 3 Comments · Geocaching, Hiking, Long Island, Photography

Another geocaching “hike” on Long Island, the first one since our return from Slovakia. This time, I was joined by Richard who quite suddenly started geocaching himself. The weather was very nice, sunny but relatively cool and breezy and we even had Curie the dog with us for the day. I have geocached in the area before, in the Maple Swamp County Park to be exact. That time, we also ventured a bit into Hubbard County to pick up a few caches. There were, however, enough caches left to warrant another visit.

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Bicycling on Long Island – Stony Brook to Long and Short Beach

May 1st, 2009 · 3 Comments · Bicycling, Geocaching, Long Island

Long and Short beach are located in the town of Nissequogue on the North Shore of Long Island. Both beaches seemed to be accessible by ~20-25 mile bicycle ride to the west from our homebase in Stony Brook. The weather forecast for the weekend was sunny and hot (too hot) so we decided to leave around 8 am from campus. After some minor repairs and bike maintenance we left around 8:30. The basic plan was to follow 25A to St. James and then Moriches road north to the beaches and then on the way back, to avoid busy 25A we planned to follow the coast on Harbor Road back to Stony Brook village and to campus.

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