Assateague Island

Sunday, October 18, 2015

I'm up and out the driveway by 6:30, sun just starting to peak out on my left driving along Route 91 south.  I packed the Kia Rio rental car last night and I'm feeling good.  Whatever I may have forgotten I'll do without.  It won't be like I'm in the wilderness.  Drive a few miles to Ocean City and I'll be able to get anything I need.

There's a strange comfort in knowing I'll likely be camping near RVs though when passing them in camp sites, they're the last ones I'd want to be next to.  So civilized in a rustic kind of way.  But I tell myself not to create dissonance that may not exist.  I know my route I want to take and I've got the virtual woman telling me more information than I want to know.  She must realize this because she stops talking to me in Connecticut and I'm on my own to look at the phone map as I drive.  The route is relatively familiar but I decide that I'm going to try a different way.  I tend to do that sometimes.  I remember 95 as having big potholes back in the '90s around the entry to New York.  It's not too bad and I make it over the George Washington Bridge, and call Georgia and Suzi who are in NYC with Suzi's mom for the weekend.

Kurt checks in when I'm somewhere in Jersey and when I'm in Delaware he says that he and Nate are just leaving.  They have a two and a half hour drive to meet me.  I was hoping they would camp with me but it's going to be in the thirties and their gear can't cut it.  They'll stay in a hotel and we'll play on the island.

I drive over the Verrazano Bridge that connects the Maryland mainland with Assateague.  I'm wondering how long it will be before I see any horses and when I turn onto the road to the camp sites, there are three horses grazing on the corner of grass.  Oh, cool.  I'm really here.  I drive toward the main gate and realize that I've left my national park pass in my own car.  The pass was incredibly inexpensive and I have no hesitation paying extra to assuage my sense that we should all be paying more.  As someone said, "You get a great break as a 'senior' 'cause they don't expect you'll be around long to use it." 

Kurt and Nate drive in about ten minutes after me.  I have a sweet camp site with a long stretch of sand where I can stake my tent, and there's a picnic table and a fireplace grill.  We put up my tent farthest  from the road, in the sand near the dune that separates the site from the shore.  I picked up sand parachutes from REI before I came down.  You load the parachute with wet sand and then bury it while tying the cords to the tent.  Supposed to hold your tent in a stiff wind.  Nate had fun helping to bury the stakes and once we got the tent up he tried it out.  I like my tent.  I wanted two zip doors since it's a two person, though it's really more like one person and your gear.

While we're getting out other gear from my car, a bay horse walks into camp.  He is the sorriest looking horse I've ever seen.  His hips are bony, his winter coat is patchy but mostly not there and he's got lots of scars along his side.  He walks toward the shrubs that are tall enough for him to hide his head.  He stands there awhile but is gone when we come back.  I say to Kurt, "He'll never make it a month never mind the winter.  He'll never make it two weeks.  Hell, I don't know how he'll make it through the night since it's supposed to be in the thirties."