3 ways Long Islanders can travel this weekend

October’s crisp fall days scream for invigorating weekend activities. Here’s how to scream back.

A few hours: Rockefeller rides

Is Rockefeller Center becoming an amusement park? First, there was The Beam, which straps tourists to a steel girder and lifts them several feet above the building’s observation deck, treating them to unparalleled views even as they create a reasonable facsimile of the famous "Lunch atop a Skyscraper" photo taken when the Rock was being built in 1932.

Now comes Skylift, a round, rotating vessel that slowly rises three stories from the roof, the contraption eventually looking like a wedding cake hovering over the 70-story building. Like The Beam, the views are matchless, the rush one-of-a-kind, and the experience certifiably terrifying for anyone afraid of heights.

Back at sea level, the Rock’s seasonal ice skating rink is open again, Santa is poised to return in December, and two newish restaurants are worth a meal: 5 Acres with upscale burgers and comfort classics, and Jupiter, which serves Italian fare in an attractive setting that includes an outdoor rink-side terrace.

A whole day: Take up a new (or old) sport in Brooklyn

Pickleball might be the rage in this country, but in much of the rest of the world, it’s padel, a sport that uses racquetball-size rackets and tennis-sized balls and is played in a squash-like enclosed court where the walls are fair game. It’s fun, fast-paced and open to all at Padel Haus, New York City’s only club of its kind, although one with three Brooklyn locations (Williamsburg, Domino Point and Dumbo) and another in Greenpoint on the way.

Those in the mood for something more leisurely might instead head to the Royal Palms Shuffleboard Club, a 10-court, walk-in facility near the Gowanus Canal that’s particularly friendly to novice shufflers, offering a free five-minute lesson from a club pro, tons of shuffleboard slang on its website to get you up to speed (the discs are called biscuits?) and a nice selection of cocktails to keep the atmosphere light.

And while people have been throwing axes with alarming frequency for years, nowhere is it done with more seriousness than Kick Axe Throwing, where things also start with a tutorial on how to throw (and, more importantly, how not to), as well as instruction in Hyper Axe — throwing real axes at digital targets, aka the future of ax throwing — and directions to the bar for bites and beverages.

A weekend: The Poconos

Yes, we’ve rolled our eyes at those commercials about Pennsylvania being fall-ier than the other states, but it’s an undeniably beautiful place in autumn, especially in the Poconos, which has — count’em — two trains giving foliage tours this month, one that leaves from the town of Jim Thorpe, and another from Honesdale. This is also the weekend of the Black Bear Film Festival, which if nothing else is a great excuse to visit Milford, one of the cutest villages in the area and a perfect home base with plenty of inns, many of them containing top restaurants like Bar Louis and the Delmonico Room at the Hotel Fauchere, and the steakhouse at the Dimmick, where an inn has stood since 1828.

Want to round out the trip with some active recreation? Consider a trip to Kalahari Resorts in Pocono Manor, with an impressive indoor water park, scale the ladders and bridges of the Treetop Adventure Course at Skytop Lodge, or enjoy snow tubing minus the snow in East Stroudsburg, which hosts the Poconos’ only year-round facility.

By Scott Vogel

scott.vogel@newsday.com

Newsday writer and restaurant critic Scott Vogel aims for a refreshing, gimlet-eyed take on the Long Island food scene, often while drinking a refreshing gimlet.