To the Lighthouse*!, or Why I Learned to Use Google Earth

     In which the author describes two very different trips to Montauk…

     Having accumulated the yearly maximum of three vacation days and with an unexpected break from babysitting the grandchildren, my husband and I decided to spend a long weekend in Montauk.  It was between Labor Day and Columbus Day so we were hoping for a good deal and believed we had found one.

     “Just steps to the beach” was one of the many great things this motel bragged about itself online.  Of course I knew that it could well mean 10,000 steps but what did that matter since we had an “ocean view”?  But I worried that it could mean just about anything, such as an ocean view from only a couple of units if you stood on a cooler and used binoculars. 

      Further investigating the “panoramic view” available on the motel’s website, I saw a yellow motel pictured in the distance with nothing between it and the Atlantic Ocean.  What could go wrong? I thought I had done my homework, plus we got 2 nights with the third free!

     We got to the motel around 8pm and saw that it was a little run-down.  No problem, we thought, we are not the elegant sort and are usually happy with functioning plumbing, electricity and cable.  We walked in and laughed, “What a dump!” It did not matter because we thought we would be sitting on our deck looking out at the beautiful ocean.  Who wants to stay inside when they are at Montauk anyway?

     The sliding doors had thick drapes over them and we eagerly flung them open to see our advertized ocean view and instead saw a dirt parking lot, and an unused one at that.  It was barely lit but we could make out a ruin of a small boat, some rusted out trucks, and some plastic cubes that bunched together were trying to pass themselves off as a playground.  The ocean was nowhere to be seen.   We could see however, numerous other motels blocking our view of it.

     While contemplating how we allowed ourselves to be so grossly misled we heard the beginnings of what is usually called a “domestic disturbance.”  The man’s voice was loud and drunk. “My mother, you never cared about my mother and I always cared about your mother.” The woman’s voice was equally drunk and almost as loud. “What about my mother? I did a lot for your mother and you did nothing for my mother.”  This issue was explored in all its abysmal depth with variations in tone, degrees of anger and many levels of volume.  But the basic argument endured for the entire weekend.

     At one point I called my cousin Jimmy in Staten Island and set the phone out so he could hear the drama.  In the morning we ventured out onto the deck and discovered the noisy neighbors were adjoining us in a corner unit and we had no privacy or escape from them.  At 8 am the man was enjoying what is sometimes called “the breakfast of champions”, a Budweiser.  He was initially polite but soon commenced with an all-purpose political rant of the sort that I usually run from quickly to avoid the foaming at the mouth that often accompanies it.

     The situation forced us out of the room and we explored Camp Hero and Shadmoor State Park on the way to Montauk Lighthouse.   We ate take-out food on the beach and checked out Hither Hills State Park and did everything we could to not be in our room.

     Ah yes, the room.  The first morning we were there I noticed something in the mirror (besides the horror of my rapidly aging visage) that was not visible the night before.  It looked as though someone had tried to write or etch a swastika into the mirror and efforts had been made (unsuccessfully) to erase it.  I know that the swastika is an ancient Native American religious symbol as well as a symbol of the NAZI party but I am guessing no ancient Native Americans had been there recently. It gave a bad vibe to the place, to say the least.

     When I got home I wrote what I hoped was a scathing review on Trip Advisor and also wrote a letter to the management of the offending motel.  I detailed the false advertising, the “view” and the swastika.  I did not mention the noise because that could happen anywhere. I also enclosed a SASE for my full refund.  The manager called back and denied there was a swastika and stated that he had NEVER said the motel in the panoramic view was his. It was simply a view of the ocean. This is when he stated, as though I had done something wrong: “You should have used  Google Earth."

     And that is how I found the “Wave Crest” in Montauk.  It is so close to the beach you practically have to move out at high tide. It is clean, quiet and perfect in every way, even bordering Hither Hills. But the funny thing is nobody wants to hear about it, they always want to hear about the time we got stuck with the noisy neighbors.  Although we fondly recollect the 20 hours we got to spend at the Wave Crest, it is the memories of the crummy joint that always make us crack up laughing.

    *Borrowing a bit from Virginia Wolfe, and adding a “!” for legal purposes.