frying pan, ny - lighthouse #11

we had another adventure before we got to the next lightship. sadly, it looks like we didn't get any pictures of one of our most exciting adventures. :( getting off of staten island was a nightmare. we were waiting to get on a bridge to get off the island, but we were in stopped traffic for a good 30 minutes. people started to get out of their cars, so shelly and i (laura was driving) got out to see what the problem was too.

there was an accident on the bridge and it was completely closed. the people there said it would probably take hours to clear. hours! serious lighthousers do not have hours to spare! there was some construction going on and one of the lanes on the road we were on had been closed. so we're chit chatting, and see someone about a half mile behind us doing some maneuvering and getting off on the exit that was just past a half mile back. that gave us an idea…

we started asking the drivers that were outside of their cars if maybe we could all work together so we could all get off on the exit behind us. they kind of laughed at us and said if we could make it happen, they would follow along. so we did! shelly and i went up to each car, each car of semi-grumpy, stuck in traffic, tough new yorkers, and told them our plan. most of them had the same reaction as the stranded motorists we had first spoken to. some of them were more than skeptical, but almost all of them said they'd go along with it.

i can't remember what had to happen first, i think a truck driver pulled over hard onto the shoulder for us, which enabled a car to turn around, with shelly and i guiding them so they didn't hit anything, and then backwards on the freeway they drove, to get off on the exit and be on their merry way. we probably directed 20 cars in the same way until finally we were free to do the same. it was so exhilarating to be helping and seeing it actually work! i got a little nervous at one point, i mean, what if someone got into an accident, or we got in trouble for directing traffic, and not only directing traffic, but directing them to turn around and drive the wrong way on a freeway! thankfully we didn't get in trouble, no one got into an accident, and, dare i say we made dozens of new yorkers days by helping them out of a hot mess of a traffic jam? it was really, really cool!

finally we were off of staten island and into the big city. on friday afternoon. :/ shelly had been very nervous about driving in the city, but laura and i are ever optimistic (idiots, ha!) and said it would be fine. it wasn't. we were, of course in major traffic. i think it was at that point that we decided we had to make some hard choices as to which lights we needed to eliminate. first off, was this guy right here:

the frying pan lightship is now a restaurant (cute, huh?!) and we were going to have lunch there, but as we waited in traffic, we looked at their menu online and were highly unimpressed. given the lack of time, we decided a drive by was sufficient. (this is not a picture we took, but we found online)

we also 86'd coney island lighthouse, tear drop memorial, where we could have seen robbin's reef (and it's famous lady lightkeeper, keep the light on, kate!), titanic memorial (looked so cute), ambrose lightship, (if i'm being honest, lightships aren't as fun as lighthouses. they're good, but not as good) north brother island, and jeffrey's hook (that one still hurts! we so wanted to see the little red lighthouse!). as you can see we were quite overzealous in our planning or non-planning, as the case may be.

after our new plans were made, we decided to ditch the car. so then we had to try to figure out how to subway to places that we were unfamiliar with, all while navigating nyc friday afternoon/evening traffic, and having only snacked through breakfast, first lunch, and second lunch. fun stuff! :/ things went downhill pretty quickly, but we were still optimistic.