This is a relatively quick one, because it's pretty late. By which I mean, it's late on the clock but I am alert and blogging because timezones and melatonin. Today was my date for out-of-city adventuring, where I caught the subway to Queens, hired a car, and imbued with the confidence of last year's cross-country driving-on-the-right success, drove out to Shoreham on Long Island.
The freeways on Long Island are a little scarier than the I-40 I drove last year. Trucks are thick, and everyone (everyone) speeds. Still, despite one overly long wrong-way detour (which wouldn't have happened if the US would have a little more enthusiasm for public bathrooms), I made it out and back in one piece, so success.
The lab in its glory days
Today, the view from one end, about as close as I could get through the chain-link fence
This trip was to visit Wardenclyffe, the location of Nikola Tesla's wireless transmission station from 1901 to 1906. If you're not familiar with Tesla and this site, read the Oatmeal's amusing and enthusiastic recap, which also links to the campaign to save the Wardenclyffe site from development. Now, the museum isn't built yet, so all you can do is stand outside the fence and soak it up. Why did I bother to hire a care and drive three hours just to do that?
Partly, it's because it's just cool – to see a physical remnant of an amazing scientist from a different era. Too good an opportunity to pass up. The other part is that Tesla figures in the science fiction thriller I'm writing for my PhD. The story is an alternative history where Tesla goes to London instead of New York, but I wanted the sense of where he'd been in his "first life" to inform the "second" that's made possible with time travel. Ok, I'm done with the nerding about that. The trip out was 100% worth it.
Having sat in a car for much of the day, when I had the chance to have dinner with some lovely friends tonight, I decided to walk the 30 blocks to their place, and back. Between that and staying in a fifth-floor apartment, my fitbit is very happy with me.
Tomorrow is my last day in New York before I leave for London, and I intend on more bookstore visits. Stay tuned.
A wall of positive reinforcement from the fitbit, though my feet are sore.