Tuesday night: For awhile during the first part of the drive to Maryland from Lancaster, I thought the weather might clear. However, it got cloudier and windier the further I drove through Delaware. Finally, by the time I reached Maryland and Assateague Island National Seashore, it was raining hard. I had a great campsite on the ocean side of the island. But I couldn’t enjoy it much because it was so windy and rainy - too windy to set up my tent. I was afraid it would blow away before I could get it up. So I spent the evening and night in the back of my minivan. I drove around the island a bit, but you can't drive too far along the Maryland side of it. I went for a walk up the flat 'boardwalk' - really just a wooden walkway - across the dunes to the ocean. It was very rough, and the wind was even stronger there. The sand hurt as it blew across my legs. I hid my face behind the hood of my jacket. There were clumps of horse manure in piles in many places along the road into the sites and along the beach. I saw five of them standing along a grassy area by the marsh where the Verrazano Bridge ends at the entrance of the road onto the island. One was all brown, and one of them was brown with white splotches - larger than spots and not really circular. From the distance, they looked smaller than the farm horses I see around Lancaster.
Oddly, even though the weather was so horrible, the campsites seemed to be almost filled up with a mix of RV's and tents. The sign on the ranger station said there were vacancies, but that was earlier in the afternoon when I got here. I talked to one of my neighbors. I met him as I was walking toward the beach. He and his wife have been coming here "for years," he said, "Since the seventies. It usually completely fills up. We have to reserve a spot six months ahead," he said. He was surprised when I told him I had called and made my reservation last week. "It's the week after Labor Day and the middle of the week," I said, to explain it. He thought it had more to do with the weather. "This place fills up all year round," he said. We talked a bit. He and his wife live in Williamstown, New Jersey, which is really between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. He knew Margate. He was there not too long ago delivering things to Casels. Imagine meeting people from my home area here at the Eastern Shores of Maryland.
All night the wind shook the minivan, but not enough to be frightening. The sound of it in the stunted trees and long grasses drowned out the sound of the waves. It's surprising that I couldn’t hear the ocean better given how close I was to it. That was because of the wind. Being forced to live in the back of a minivan packed with an army cot, my folded up tent, a suitcase, a cooler, a plastic box filled with stuff, and other odds and ends, is not very pleasant. The army cot is not as comfortable as my air mattress, either, but there isn't enough room in the minivan for the air mattress. I curled up on the cot and read a book. I have two wonderful LED lamps that were not expensive. If I had to live in my auto, like so many homeless people do, I would go crazy from boredom and being encased in such a small space.
Wednesday: The wind shook the minivan off and on all night, and shrieked and groaned. But finally, around 3:00 a.m., the rain stopped and the clouds moved enough that I could see the full moon. It was very bright and lit up the camp ground even from behind so many clouds. The wind calmed down just before sunrise. The morning was pleasant and bright. I got out of the minivan and made breakfast: a couple of hard boiled eggs and a peach. I boiled water in a kettle on my small, portable propane gas burner and had tea. My back hurt from that army cot, but I walked around for awhile on the beach and took some photos. That helped. I pitched the tent with the help of a young woman who is in a tent with her boyfriend or husband in the site next to mine. She was walking by when I started on it. She immediately offered to help – I think she wanted to chat. I have the process of putting the tent up and breaking it down pretty much down to an art by now, but it was certainly easier with the help. We talked a bit about places we’ve camped. The two of them traveled around the country, camping, over the summer, too.
I decided to drive over to the Virginia side of the island to see the Chincoteague side. On the way out, just before the Verrazano Bridge, traffic halted. A few horses were grazing along the side of the road, and another horse had tried to walk across the road, then stopped still. It must have been terrified. Cars were stopped along both sides of the road, and people got out of their vehicles to take photos. (I confess that I did, too.) Then we all took turns driving around it. I stopped off at the National Parks Service visitors’ center on the side of the bridge and told someone about the horse. She called “law enforcement” to see if they could do something before a car or human hurt it.
It took a little over an hour to drive to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge over the small, two lane roads. I passed NASA’a Wallops Flight Facility, where they launch rockets. It’s fairly big, but not as big Houston’s site, of course. NASA scientists do a lot of research at Wallops. I drove on to the small sea side town of Chincoteague. There is a famous ice cream place there, so I stopped to try it out. There were a lot of bikers there, who sat and talked to me about the wildlife refuge. This was bikers’ week, and there were a lot of different events going around the entire area for the bikers to raise money for charities like the 9/11 fund.
I drove into the wildlife refuge. The national parks pass I paid for at the entrance to Assateague Island National Seashore was also good for this. The lighthouse was not far from the entrance. I had to park in a small lot next to the road and walk a ¼ mile through a woodsy part of the barrier island to see the lighthouse. It was too steep for me to climb, especially the way my back was hurting, so I just wandered around it and took photos. It is back by the estuary behind the island, rather than on the ocean side. It is tall, but doesn’t have much else besides the actual tower and light at the top. A spiral metal staircase leads up to the very top. The lighthouse was built in 1867 and is maintained by the Coast Guard still. There is a small Coast Guard station right next to it. It once stood on the ocean side, but according to the Chincoteague Natural History Association, “Because of the dynamic movement of the island, the light no longer sits adjacent to the open sea. The southward growth of the island since 1850 has stranded the lighthouse almost 5 miles from the Chincoteague Inlet.” The organization’s website also says, “The lighthouses along the Eastern seaboard each have a unique color pattern and light flash pattern. By day, the broad red stripes over broad white stripes distinguish the Assateague Light and by night the characteristic is the flash pattern of two consecutive flashes every five seconds.”
Next, I drove to the visitor’s center and watched a short film about the wild ponies and other wildlife on the island. There are a number of theories about how the horses got on the island, but the most commonly accepted one is that a Spanish ship carrying horses sank off the coast there, and some of the horses were able to swim to shore. The National Park Service’s website states: “The most plausible explanation is that they are the descendants of horses that were brought to barrier islands like Assateague in the late 17th century by mainland owners to avoid fencing laws and taxation of livestock.” However, there is now documentation that two Spanish ships were wrecked off the shores of the island. the La Galga in 1750, and a second ship thought to be the transport vessel Juno in 1802.
I then drove to the end of the refuge where there was a nice, but crowded beach. I went back to the wildlife loop trail, which should have been open to vehicles but was not. I hiked a little bit along the pedestrian path which led through the marsh. Driving back to the entrance, I passed a line of cars parked along the road. People were standing on the sides of it taking photos of a band of horses out in the estuary. I stopped and took photos, too. A little way further, I again stopped to photograph a mare and her half grown colt feeding in the estuary while another horse looked on. I don’t know if that was the stallion or another mare. Then I drove back to the Maryland side of the island.
On the way back, I stopped at the NASA visitors’ center. They showed a 20 minute film about the universe, then a very short film about the rockets they launch at that facility. It was very interesting. There were a lot of displays in the center related to rockets, as well as the space program.
When I got back to the Maryland side of Assateague Island and the campground, I had to be careful parking in my site because there were a bunch of the horses wandering around there. Two of them walked up to the minivan and then around it, and started grazing there. I took photos of the horses who were wandering all over the various campsites. They wandered in and out all night, too. My site was popular because there is a path from a small parking lot next to the road that runs from the road, past my site, to the beach. I could hear a horse snorting nearby, occasionally, during the night. It was a bit unnerving. They look beautiful and harmless, but the park service has signs up all over warning people not to get too near because the horses bite and kick.
Thursday: The next day it was terribly hot, and I desperately needed a shower. There were only two outdoor showers that were pretty disgusting, actually, and right next to the ‘vault’ toilets (fancy latrines) that I had grown pretty sick of by that time. My back was hurting a lot, too. I decided to pack up, drive around the island a little bit to see some more of it, though there wasn’t much beyond the beach and estuary on the other side of it. I was tempted to drive around the Maryland state park side, but my pass for the National Park Service maintained side didn’t cover the fee, and it was just a smaller version of the rest of the island, so I decided to leave, see some of Ocean City, which was just down the road a bit, and then head home, even though I had a reservation for one more night. One of the other campers there couldn’t get a reservation for a site for that day and would have had to check out that morning, so I let her have mine. It was already paid for, the park service wasn’t going to refund me any of it, so I figured someone should get the use of it.
Ocean City, Maryland, is like most other seaside resort towns. There is the requisite amusement park, the boardwalk, the tourist junk shops, the ice cream and candy shops, the seafood restaurants, and so on. I drove around a bit, unimpressed. Frankly, I think Ocean City, New Jersey is prettier, but I admit I’m biased. I had lunch at a pizza place that offered a decent veggie burger, and then drove back to Lancaster.
Oddly, even though the weather was so horrible, the campsites seemed to be almost filled up with a mix of RV's and tents. The sign on the ranger station said there were vacancies, but that was earlier in the afternoon when I got here. I talked to one of my neighbors. I met him as I was walking toward the beach. He and his wife have been coming here "for years," he said, "Since the seventies. It usually completely fills up. We have to reserve a spot six months ahead," he said. He was surprised when I told him I had called and made my reservation last week. "It's the week after Labor Day and the middle of the week," I said, to explain it. He thought it had more to do with the weather. "This place fills up all year round," he said. We talked a bit. He and his wife live in Williamstown, New Jersey, which is really between Philadelphia and Atlantic City. He knew Margate. He was there not too long ago delivering things to Casels. Imagine meeting people from my home area here at the Eastern Shores of Maryland.
All night the wind shook the minivan, but not enough to be frightening. The sound of it in the stunted trees and long grasses drowned out the sound of the waves. It's surprising that I couldn’t hear the ocean better given how close I was to it. That was because of the wind. Being forced to live in the back of a minivan packed with an army cot, my folded up tent, a suitcase, a cooler, a plastic box filled with stuff, and other odds and ends, is not very pleasant. The army cot is not as comfortable as my air mattress, either, but there isn't enough room in the minivan for the air mattress. I curled up on the cot and read a book. I have two wonderful LED lamps that were not expensive. If I had to live in my auto, like so many homeless people do, I would go crazy from boredom and being encased in such a small space.
Wednesday: The wind shook the minivan off and on all night, and shrieked and groaned. But finally, around 3:00 a.m., the rain stopped and the clouds moved enough that I could see the full moon. It was very bright and lit up the camp ground even from behind so many clouds. The wind calmed down just before sunrise. The morning was pleasant and bright. I got out of the minivan and made breakfast: a couple of hard boiled eggs and a peach. I boiled water in a kettle on my small, portable propane gas burner and had tea. My back hurt from that army cot, but I walked around for awhile on the beach and took some photos. That helped. I pitched the tent with the help of a young woman who is in a tent with her boyfriend or husband in the site next to mine. She was walking by when I started on it. She immediately offered to help – I think she wanted to chat. I have the process of putting the tent up and breaking it down pretty much down to an art by now, but it was certainly easier with the help. We talked a bit about places we’ve camped. The two of them traveled around the country, camping, over the summer, too.
I decided to drive over to the Virginia side of the island to see the Chincoteague side. On the way out, just before the Verrazano Bridge, traffic halted. A few horses were grazing along the side of the road, and another horse had tried to walk across the road, then stopped still. It must have been terrified. Cars were stopped along both sides of the road, and people got out of their vehicles to take photos. (I confess that I did, too.) Then we all took turns driving around it. I stopped off at the National Parks Service visitors’ center on the side of the bridge and told someone about the horse. She called “law enforcement” to see if they could do something before a car or human hurt it.
It took a little over an hour to drive to Chincoteague National Wildlife Refuge over the small, two lane roads. I passed NASA’a Wallops Flight Facility, where they launch rockets. It’s fairly big, but not as big Houston’s site, of course. NASA scientists do a lot of research at Wallops. I drove on to the small sea side town of Chincoteague. There is a famous ice cream place there, so I stopped to try it out. There were a lot of bikers there, who sat and talked to me about the wildlife refuge. This was bikers’ week, and there were a lot of different events going around the entire area for the bikers to raise money for charities like the 9/11 fund.
I drove into the wildlife refuge. The national parks pass I paid for at the entrance to Assateague Island National Seashore was also good for this. The lighthouse was not far from the entrance. I had to park in a small lot next to the road and walk a ¼ mile through a woodsy part of the barrier island to see the lighthouse. It was too steep for me to climb, especially the way my back was hurting, so I just wandered around it and took photos. It is back by the estuary behind the island, rather than on the ocean side. It is tall, but doesn’t have much else besides the actual tower and light at the top. A spiral metal staircase leads up to the very top. The lighthouse was built in 1867 and is maintained by the Coast Guard still. There is a small Coast Guard station right next to it. It once stood on the ocean side, but according to the Chincoteague Natural History Association, “Because of the dynamic movement of the island, the light no longer sits adjacent to the open sea. The southward growth of the island since 1850 has stranded the lighthouse almost 5 miles from the Chincoteague Inlet.” The organization’s website also says, “The lighthouses along the Eastern seaboard each have a unique color pattern and light flash pattern. By day, the broad red stripes over broad white stripes distinguish the Assateague Light and by night the characteristic is the flash pattern of two consecutive flashes every five seconds.”
Next, I drove to the visitor’s center and watched a short film about the wild ponies and other wildlife on the island. There are a number of theories about how the horses got on the island, but the most commonly accepted one is that a Spanish ship carrying horses sank off the coast there, and some of the horses were able to swim to shore. The National Park Service’s website states: “The most plausible explanation is that they are the descendants of horses that were brought to barrier islands like Assateague in the late 17th century by mainland owners to avoid fencing laws and taxation of livestock.” However, there is now documentation that two Spanish ships were wrecked off the shores of the island. the La Galga in 1750, and a second ship thought to be the transport vessel Juno in 1802.
I then drove to the end of the refuge where there was a nice, but crowded beach. I went back to the wildlife loop trail, which should have been open to vehicles but was not. I hiked a little bit along the pedestrian path which led through the marsh. Driving back to the entrance, I passed a line of cars parked along the road. People were standing on the sides of it taking photos of a band of horses out in the estuary. I stopped and took photos, too. A little way further, I again stopped to photograph a mare and her half grown colt feeding in the estuary while another horse looked on. I don’t know if that was the stallion or another mare. Then I drove back to the Maryland side of the island.
On the way back, I stopped at the NASA visitors’ center. They showed a 20 minute film about the universe, then a very short film about the rockets they launch at that facility. It was very interesting. There were a lot of displays in the center related to rockets, as well as the space program.
When I got back to the Maryland side of Assateague Island and the campground, I had to be careful parking in my site because there were a bunch of the horses wandering around there. Two of them walked up to the minivan and then around it, and started grazing there. I took photos of the horses who were wandering all over the various campsites. They wandered in and out all night, too. My site was popular because there is a path from a small parking lot next to the road that runs from the road, past my site, to the beach. I could hear a horse snorting nearby, occasionally, during the night. It was a bit unnerving. They look beautiful and harmless, but the park service has signs up all over warning people not to get too near because the horses bite and kick.
Thursday: The next day it was terribly hot, and I desperately needed a shower. There were only two outdoor showers that were pretty disgusting, actually, and right next to the ‘vault’ toilets (fancy latrines) that I had grown pretty sick of by that time. My back was hurting a lot, too. I decided to pack up, drive around the island a little bit to see some more of it, though there wasn’t much beyond the beach and estuary on the other side of it. I was tempted to drive around the Maryland state park side, but my pass for the National Park Service maintained side didn’t cover the fee, and it was just a smaller version of the rest of the island, so I decided to leave, see some of Ocean City, which was just down the road a bit, and then head home, even though I had a reservation for one more night. One of the other campers there couldn’t get a reservation for a site for that day and would have had to check out that morning, so I let her have mine. It was already paid for, the park service wasn’t going to refund me any of it, so I figured someone should get the use of it.
Ocean City, Maryland, is like most other seaside resort towns. There is the requisite amusement park, the boardwalk, the tourist junk shops, the ice cream and candy shops, the seafood restaurants, and so on. I drove around a bit, unimpressed. Frankly, I think Ocean City, New Jersey is prettier, but I admit I’m biased. I had lunch at a pizza place that offered a decent veggie burger, and then drove back to Lancaster.