A Ride Around the Lake Pt 3 - Baymen Park

I've finally made it to Baymen Park, located on Shore Rd just off of Smithtown Blvd. It gets it's name from the youth baseball team that plays here. 

Baymen Park 

The sign actually reads "Lake Ronkonoma County Park: Home of the L.I. Baymen," but Baymen Park is the best way to differentiate it from the other areas that belong to LRCP.  Anyway, this is the road leading into the park, nothing too exciting. It's lined with trees on the right and a small lawn on the left. If you look closely you can see that the sidewalk abruptly ends once you get into the actual park. It's almost as if the sidewalks around here are just decorations that aren't actually meant to be walked on. 

Smithtown Blvd

Just across from the entrance is yet another strip mall. All these businesses are fine and all, it's just the building they're housed in that's kind of ugly. That, and the crumbling car park plastered in front of it. But anyway, back to the park... 

Baymen Park

This is the beach. At first glance it looks pretty nice. In the background you can see a guy in the water with a metal detector. He's actually the second one I spotted. Right when I rode in, I saw another guy with a metal detector pull an aluminum can out of the water, briefly look it over, then toss it back into the lake with contempt. Gotta love it.

There were also some people swimming. Swimming is actually prohibited here because they don't have a life guard posted, but people do it anyway. Technically, I was also breaking the rules for biking, just like the guys who were wading looking for metal. This place is just full of first world anarchists stickin' it to the absent and underfunded man. 

Baymen Park

One thing I like about this park are the trees at the top of the beach that let you sit in the shade while you have a view of the water. 

Baymen Park

And there is no shortage of picnic tables either (seen in the background under the trees). The amount of garbage cans is a bit overkill though if you ask me. It looks like one per table. I get that they wanna keep people from littering, but littering the picnic area with garbage cans kinda defeats the purpose.

Baymen Park

As you can see the beach also has some hidden surprises camouflaged among the beach glass... I mean grass. If you walk across the beach, just about every two or three steps you can spot more of this crap, and that's if you don't even slow down to look for it. It's not so bad down by the water but if you're the kind of person who likes to walk barefoot in the sand you're not going to have much fun here. That's another rule that people don't seem to follow: no drinking alcohol. I mean I can't be 100% sure because I didn't actually see anyone imbibing, but I presume those are broken beer bottles and not just some colored vases somebody decided they'd discard at the lake.

I actually wouldn't mind people drinking as long as they weren't getting shitfaced while other people were there with their kids, and if they'd properly dispose of their glass. Outright bans or making people hide their booze in plastic cups really doesn't prevent that kind of behavior. It just leads to people hiding their containers and disposing of them where others don't see them.. at least not until they're pulling the shards out of their feet. Rules like these are just leftover nonsense from the prohibition era if you ask me. But what do I know. Next picture.

Baymen Park

These are the basketballs courts... or what's left of them anyway. Grass is growing through the cracks in the concrete and there's hardly anything left of the chain nets. With the taxes people pay around here you'd think they'd have some funds to maintain places like this. But hey, at least there's a bike rack in the park where you're not even allowed to ride a bike.

Baymen Park

There are also two baseball diamonds in the park with small seating areas on the side. This is the smaller of the two and it wasn't in as good of shape. I assume the larger one is the one where the kids play the most so it's better taken care of.  

There's also a fairly large playground in the park that a couple of families were at. I didn't take a picture of it because honestly I don't wanna end up on a list, but I wanted to mention it so you know the park wasn't empty and the playground was in decent condition (save for the colored plastic being bleached by the sun). The playground is also surrounded by a fence which is good because that keeps the kids from running out onto the glass-ridden sand. For hotter days there is a sort of gazebo next to the playground with benches under it for the parents to sit at.

Another thing I didn't photograph are the bathrooms which I'm happy to report had running water, soap, and paper towels.  

Baymen Park

This is the last picture I took of the park. In the background you can see more rebels; yes, boat launching is also prohibited. And look, another bike. Absolute madness.  Anyway this is the way my crazy adventure continued, on towards the former Bavarian Inn. That'll be the topic of my next post in this series.