assateague
Sep. 20th, 2010 01:01 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
jazzfishAnd then uilos and I spent the weekend before last camping at Assateague, because the correct time of year to do that is just after Labor Day. I mean, assuming you don't get hurricaned out, which is what happened last year.
uilos drove, for which I am intensely grateful. Sometime in the last few years I've developed an aversion to driving in traffic, and Friday afternoon in DC certainly meets that criterion.
We pulled in just after sunset, put up the tent in the dark, and went to lie on the beach and stare at the stars for awhile. I've missed stars, and being by the water.
The next morning I tried to light the stove and grill with the strike-anywhere matches I've been carrying around in my camping supplies since, oh, probably around 1994, and found out that "strike anywhere" means "light nowhere." She went and snagged a lighter thing from the camp store and breakfast was saved, if a little late. (Mmm pancakes.)
Afterwards we had a good walk out to the visitor's center on the mainland, past an awful lot of egrets and scruffy crows, and went swimming in the ocean which wasn't nearly as cold as I'd been worried it would be (or as it ought to have been for the week after Labor Day). Then off to Ocean City for the obligatory tromp along the boardwalk and ogling all kinds of crap we don't need. The boardwalk has basically nothing to offer me anymore: the food's mediocre, the stuff's irrelevant, the beach is better at the campsite, and in the early evening the people-watching isn't even all that great. Eh, well. Good to know that now, anyway.
That night we built a fire, had smores, and sat up until all hours watching the last bits of wood slowly burn down to ashes. Exceedingly pleasant, if a bit chilly towards the end.
Something outside wokeuilos up around 2:30 AM. She unzipped the tent to look out and started yelling at something. I passed her my flannel shirt and she went out to try and chase off the %&$ ponies that had wandered by, knocked the food-bin off the picnic table, and chowed down on most of a loaf of homemade bread. She grumbled and gathered things into the bin while I stayed in the tent and tried to talk her out of actually smacking the ponies (the photos of someone who'd been bitten by a pony that the park service has plastered over all the bath-houses made an impression on me). Eventually everything was gathered and put in the trunk for safe-keeping.
Which was just as well, because when I woke up next it was around seven AM and had been raining good and hard for awhile, with no signs of letting up.
So we grumbled and burrowed into the sleeping bags and tried to pretend that it was going to stop Any Minute Now, and eventually got out and took down the now-covered-in-wet-sand tent and headed home. At least I know my good raincoat works. And the drive wasn't too horrible, at least I don't think it was, and it had a long nap at the end of it.
A good trip.
uilos and I spent the weekend before last camping at Assateague, because the correct time of year to do that is just after Labor Day. I mean, assuming you don't get hurricaned out, which is what happened last year.uilos drove, for which I am intensely grateful. Sometime in the last few years I've developed an aversion to driving in traffic, and Friday afternoon in DC certainly meets that criterion.We pulled in just after sunset, put up the tent in the dark, and went to lie on the beach and stare at the stars for awhile. I've missed stars, and being by the water.
The next morning I tried to light the stove and grill with the strike-anywhere matches I've been carrying around in my camping supplies since, oh, probably around 1994, and found out that "strike anywhere" means "light nowhere." She went and snagged a lighter thing from the camp store and breakfast was saved, if a little late. (Mmm pancakes.)
Afterwards we had a good walk out to the visitor's center on the mainland, past an awful lot of egrets and scruffy crows, and went swimming in the ocean which wasn't nearly as cold as I'd been worried it would be (or as it ought to have been for the week after Labor Day). Then off to Ocean City for the obligatory tromp along the boardwalk and ogling all kinds of crap we don't need. The boardwalk has basically nothing to offer me anymore: the food's mediocre, the stuff's irrelevant, the beach is better at the campsite, and in the early evening the people-watching isn't even all that great. Eh, well. Good to know that now, anyway.
That night we built a fire, had smores, and sat up until all hours watching the last bits of wood slowly burn down to ashes. Exceedingly pleasant, if a bit chilly towards the end.
Something outside woke
uilos up around 2:30 AM. She unzipped the tent to look out and started yelling at something. I passed her my flannel shirt and she went out to try and chase off the %&$ ponies that had wandered by, knocked the food-bin off the picnic table, and chowed down on most of a loaf of homemade bread. She grumbled and gathered things into the bin while I stayed in the tent and tried to talk her out of actually smacking the ponies (the photos of someone who'd been bitten by a pony that the park service has plastered over all the bath-houses made an impression on me). Eventually everything was gathered and put in the trunk for safe-keeping.Which was just as well, because when I woke up next it was around seven AM and had been raining good and hard for awhile, with no signs of letting up.
So we grumbled and burrowed into the sleeping bags and tried to pretend that it was going to stop Any Minute Now, and eventually got out and took down the now-covered-in-wet-sand tent and headed home. At least I know my good raincoat works. And the drive wasn't too horrible, at least I don't think it was, and it had a long nap at the end of it.
A good trip.