Matthew Monday: Father’s Day 2026

I’m only now getting the chance to post on our annual Father’s Day, father/son adventure.  This is an annual event we do for Father’s Day.  We do some “adventure” together, just the two of us.  I first wrote about this in 2014 when Matthew was four years old.  And if you’re interested, you can scroll through all the annual Father’s Day adventures using this link. 

This year we decided to hike and explore one of Staten Island's many parks, a lesser known park called Wolf’s Pond.  It’s not a very large park, but it’s eclectic.  It has woods and hiking trails as one would expect with fresh water ponds but it also runs up to the Raritan Bay, which is part of the Atlantic Ocean.  So it also has ocean front and beach.  Here is a map of the park.

I don’t think any of the hiking tails are more than two miles, so that should give you a perspective.  The long tear-drop shaped pond on the southwest corner is Wolf’s Pond, and you can see that only a sliver of land separates it from the bay.  Major hurricanes have caused the ocean water to breach into the pond and kill all the fresh water pond life.  Several times in the last century they have had to fix the damage and restore normal pond life.

The real adventure of this day was not so much the hiking and exploring, but the drive.  Matthew has his driving permit and been taking driving lessons.  The adventure was for him to drive us there and back.  Not using highways, which he has not learned to do yet, it’s about a ten mile drive through the streets.  I took one picture of him driving.

I will say he drives pretty well in the streets, but I have to say he needs work on his parallel parking and managing parking lots.  But we went there and back with no problems.

Here are some pictures of Matthew on the hiking trail.

Here are some pictures of Wolf’s Pond.

The Canadian geese had monopolized this but there were ducks and turtles and people fishing.  It’s actually a very lovely park for those who live by here.

Once you come out of the woods, you can see ocean.

We explored a remote area of the shore for a bit as well. 

There was lots of fallen trees, washed-up stuff from the ocean, and a seaweed stinky smell.  It was not somewhere you wanted to hang out. 

That’s yours truly, with his camera. 

I should mention, Wolf’s Pond Park has a very nice memorial to those who fought in the Battle of the Bulge.  I took several pictures, but I’m only going to share one.

On the way home, I had Matthew stop at what I thought was an upscale pizza place.  It turned out to be an expensive Italian restaurant.

Matthew wound up getting a prime rib that was enough for three servings and I had cavatelli in a Bolognaise sauce.  Delicious!  We took home the left overs.

Finally, a father and son picture.

Matthew is good at selfies.  I’m not.